Two Years Charity Tours

It has already been 25 months since we did our first charity Free Sofia Tour – on August 6th 2011.

Since then, we have collected over 5000 BGN (Bulgarian lev) for charity purposes and were able to develop a whole new branch within our Association called the Social Program.

The main focus of the Social Program is to organize and support various initiatives for the kids from the Home for Children without Parental Care in Doganovo – a small village near Sofia.

Here are some of the projects we did for or together with them:

• Sports equipment (2011)
• Christmas theater (2011)
• Participation in the ANIMA Festival (2012)
• Support for the project El Paso (2012)
• Christmas presents at their Christmas show in Sofia (2012)
• School supplies for the start of the new school year (2013)

Our project with the children has become so popular that it constantly inspires our guests:

On behalf of our group I just transferred an amount of 400 EUR to the bank account of your Association, to spend it on activities for the children of Doganovo. It is the bonus that you together earned, by the enthusiasm and dedication you showed organising our trip to Sofia and Plovdiv last month.

We had a great time, so now let the kids of the foster home have a great time as well!

We wish every one of you lots of success for the future.

The last initiative with the kids was realized a month ago – on September 21st. 45 kids came from Doganovo and were split into three groups upon arrival.

Two of the groups went to a couple of parks in Sofia.

There, they had to look for centuries-old trees, figure out their names, measure their circumference, find out if they had any hollows and note all of this down on a score card. This game was kindly organized by our friends from the green  Div Roshkov NGO. While playing, everyone learned a lot of new things and a acquired a sense of respect for nature and the old trees. 

The third group – teenage girls and boys – went to see the exhibition Human Bodies.

Again a very educational activity, which gave them food for thought and discussion afterwards. On their way back, they found a new friend 🙂

After a productive and exciting morning, everyone had lunch in a pizzeria in the center of Sofia

Later we headed to another park where our Association had a stand at the European Mobility Week. Here the program for the kids involved activities from chalk drawings through searching for a flying disk in the bushes and playing with it to playing chalk games.

In addition, all the kids were able to prepare their own special seeds ball to plant in the yard back in the Home – again thanks to our friends from Div Roshkov, who had brought all the materials and gave the instructions.

In the end, it was really hard to say goodbye.

Fortunately, the Social Program is currently working on the next project with the kids – we want to spend a day during the weekend together with them but in their home and get to know them better while playing various games and getting them involved into different activities. Our ultimate goal is to approach each kid’s needs and talents individually and help them find their own path for development.

Group photo