Traditionally, at the beginning of March, Equilibrium invites working partners and members of the local community to an event that allows us to showcase our activities. We focus on highlights from the year past and important work in progress.
Ruse’s history museum was the venue for this year’s presentation and the entire afternoon of 9th March was dedicated to allowing a variety of team members to talk about their work and (more importantly, perhaps) allowing groups of children and young adults to show what Equilibrium means for them. We also use films and photo montages to give the audience a glimpse into the world of Equilibrium – the social services we manage, the projects we run and the way we act as innovators in our pursuit of better methods of family support.
Count the logos on our Facebook pages and you will see that Equilibrium is growing. We now manage 10 discrete services with the Ruse complex acting as the management hub. It isn’t just a question of size. During the event, we showed how organizations like Denmark’s Velux Foundations support Equilibrium to create sustainable change through innovation Also, our long experience of managing services for children at risk and their families gives us the authority to influence child protection policy.
While little Julia, Eliot and Georgi (average age of 3) played in water with seashells, giant wooden spoons and baskets, we gave a running commentary on their play. We outlined the theory behind our creation of Bulgaria’s first interactive centre for working with young children, parents, educators and childcare professionals. We will develop a developmentally appropriate alternative to current practice in Bulgarian kindergarten and preschool.
With a wonderful combination of charm and professionalism, social workers Darinka, Mikaela and Valeria explained their roles in different initiatives. Master story-teller Milena gave an account of a typical day in the life of an Equilibrium psychologist that overflowed with humour and affection.
Children express themselves in many ways. Students from the Ivan Vassov School did it using shadow theatre while Simona and Julien demonstrated a waltz and an tango.
Equilibrium produced two films during 2016. One featured children revealing the things they value and explaining how mums, dads and other grown-ups provide love and security. The other showed our work in Ruse’s two Roma communities.
No Equilibrium event is complete without a giant cake. 9th March was the birthday of an irreplaceable member of our management team, Milena Vlahova. “Happy birthday to you”. Who could ask for a better finale?
Sincere thanks to the team at the museum and our friends from Arena Media who filmed the event.
