She comes from the land that gave birth to Orpheus and Spartacus, a country with a long and fascinating history. When Raymila Markova joined the Police Criminal Directorate in Sophia, she became responsible for combatting trafficking in priceless artefacts throughout Bulgaria. She tried to preserve from destruction and pillage the country's rich cultural legacy marked by the passing of the Greeks, Scythians, Romans, Byzantines and Turks.

Whilst in Bulgaria, Raymila was in charge of foiling the widespread art theft and illegal archeological excavations throughout the country, where each year, objects of cultural importance and significant value are looted and then smuggled out around the world, often becoming part of private collections.

At one point, she left it all behind in order to join a supplementary police unit of the EULEX Executive Division in Kosovo. This was a far cry from the world of art, being the first police unit tasked with patrolling the northern Kosovo.

After one year, Raymila became a station adviser in the Strengthening Division in the north, advising the local police service in four northern municipalities on community policing and helping increase their efficiency. The most important task for her and the KP police is to forge a close relationship with the local community built on trust, acceptance and common aims needed to raise security and safety standards.

"In order to be effective, the police force needs to have the consent of the community. We have to concentrate on crime prevention and for that we need partnership with the citizens", Raymila points out.

An important principle of community policing in the north is that the police understand the needs and requirements of the society where they live, Raymila points out. Since the police provide the public service, it also has to go a step further to identify and solve the problems in order to prevent future crime and conflicts. The community police, according to Raymila, are accountable for their actions and decision making to the citizens they serve. The community officers need to inspire local population to become proactive rather than passive recipient of policing services. In other words, they are not there to dominate but serve the community.

Raymila works together in a small team focusing on monitoring, mentoring and advising to their local counterparts, in their quest to enhance the operational capacity of the police stations in the north municipalities. They are engaged in everyday activities together with their colleagues providing advice and inspiration, sometimes solving together their everyday problems and obstacles.

An essential requirement of her job, Raymila points out, is the strong working relationship with her local colleagues. "I like the fact that we can communicate. Bearing in mind the similarity with Bulgarian, I can say that I understand Serbian. I also understand local tradition and culture. We share similar background and that comes handy in my everyday work".

Raymila has recently started working on domestic violence issues in the north. Her main concern is to protect the victims in a small community where "people are reluctant to share their problems as they all know each other and they don't want to be stigmatised". She is familiar with the disconnections between the state institutions and civil society and has tried to identify the gaps in order to better safeguard the victims of domestic violence. In this ongoing process both KP colleagues and herself have learnt a lot, she points out.

"We share our experiences and learning goes both ways. I acquire knowledge from my KP colleagues and they learn from me", Raymila says.

Raymila is a community policewoman with a heart. Her aim is to reach those in need in the community and her wish is that her KP colleagues would be able to respond to all their demands: from neighbor's dispute to child safety, from the repair of a broken sewage pipe that can harm the pedestrians to a society free of violence.

As part of her job, Raymila reaches out to a small, remote mountainous village of Gornji Strumac, adorned with 13th century church, to assess the security of mostly elderly people, sheltered in a beautiful landscape. And she also regularly visits the village Čabra / Çabër, where she attends the needs of the local Albanian population.
At the end of her term in northern Kosovo, she will be resuming her old job in Bulgaria, chasing those who profit from trafficking of cultural objects. Nevertheless, she would be sad to leave her friends and colleagues.

"An effective police force with close cooperation with municipality and in constant communication with its citizens, would bring an empowerment to a local community", Raymila points out as she explains her wish for northern Kosovo.

"I would be glad to see before I leave, smiling people preoccupied with their future, having left their concerns behind", Raymila says. "Then I would know that my short visit to Kosovo was well worth the effort", she concludes.