EQ News
Events staged on 27th and 28th July, represented the culmination of the project – ‘Restructuring of the Home for Medical and Social Care for Children in Teteven and development of alternative services for children and families (Centre of Social Support)’
undertaken by Equilibrium and Hope and Homes for Children (HHC) with the financial support of the Bulgarian Abandoned Children’s Trust (UK), sponsorship from Sandvik (BG) and on the basis of memoranda of agreement with Teteven municipal authority and the Ministry… Continue reading
EQ experts Milena Vlahova – director of the Complex of Social Services in Ruse and Stefka Peteva – Manager of the Street Children Centre which is part of the Complex, accompanied by Galya Bisset – HHC’s regional manager for Central and Eastern Europe conducted a 2-day training in Teteven on 4th and 5th July, 2011 for the teams of the centre of Social Support and the Child Protection Department.
They shared good practices and discussed perennial difficulties in case management.… Continue reading
On the evening of 30th June, 2011 EQ hosted a special event in the Ruse Regional History Museum with the kind support of Arena Media and Open Society Ruse.
The event was out of the ordinary in the sense that David was the only adult performer. The “three guitars” belonged to Roxana Borisova and David’s son Vihren, students at the city’s music school as well as Ani Gaydarova who studies music in a conservatory in Romania. The singing voice was… Continue reading
In May 2011 the Ruse complex for social services for children and families started work on the project ‘Development of the early intervention service for children with special needs in the local community’, which is implemented by the Karin Dom Foundation in partnership with Equilibrium.
The project is funded by the Tulip Foundation and aims to develop and implement a model of early intervention to prevent institutionalization of children with special needs. Ten NGOs are involved. They are partners in… Continue reading
20th April, 2011 marked the official opening of the new centre of social support in Teteven that occupies the building that previously accommodated the baby home. This institution was closed during 2010 by a project team drawn from Equilibrium (EQ) and Hope and Homes for Children (HHC) in the UK
Besides guests from the local and regional authorities and social welfare agencies that included the mayor of Teteven and his deputies, the deputy district governor of Lovech, national government was… Continue reading
Makariv is a town in Kiev Oblast (province) of Ukraine. The population is just over 12,000 and this includes a sizeable Jewish community.
The town is the centre of Hasidic Makarov dynasy. Equilibrium’s UK partner, Hope and Homes for Children, has been supporting the development of a new centre of social support in the town and Equilibrium was asked to provide direct input to the training programme. Thus, Nadedja Petrova, a psychologist from the Ruse complex accompanied Galya Bisset in… Continue reading
As from 1st January, 2011 Equilibrium will manage Ruse’s complex for social services and the small group home for children for a further three years. Once again, we’re working in partnership with the Open Society Club and with the welcome support of Arena Media.
After hearing the news, and even before David had signed the new contract with the municipal authority on 15th December, the team got together to share cake and champagne. It was great that there were plenty… Continue reading
Christmas is a time for giving and it is customary for the team at the complex to distribute ‘shoe boxes’ to our young clients containing gifts from overseas provided by the generosity of the Samaritans. This year, we ramped up our campaign and here is how it happened…
‘Hey’ says Galya, ‘Bulgarian Charities Aid Foundation is providing funding to buy materials to support fundraising activity – let’s do something.’
So we did just that. Eli put together a campaign proposal,… Continue reading
On the 28th December 2010, the Council of Ministers announced the official closure of Teteven institution for children 0 to 3 (officially Home for Medical and Social Care for Children – HMSCC).
In the note explaining the reason for the decision there was a reference to Hope and Homes for Children / Equilibrium project which lead to moving all children out of the institution into family care and establishing alternative to the institution services. Out of the 32 children assessed… Continue reading
In 2008, Equilibrium hosted a study visit to Bulgaria for personnel of CCF-Moldova (see Archive) and our organisations have kept in touch primarily through providing technical support to one another and exchanging literature.
This year’s visit – financially supported by UNICEF Moldova – was significantly more ambitious. Both Moldova and Bulgaria have embarked on deinstitutionalization programmes that involve cooperation between NGOs and government at municipal, regional and national level. EQ plays a leading role in the Bulgarian process while CCF… Continue reading