Recent events
On April, 17, 2012, we took part in an event at the Culture Hall of Ruse Municipality that gave us the opportunity to share our experience from the project Children Meet Their New Friends – the Horses and explain the positive impact on the young participants.
Over a period of 7 months, 25 children from Ruse had the opportunity to participate in the programme that included both therapeutic and recreational contact with horses. There were two target groups – children with special needs and socially vulnerable children. The project involved the collaboration of Horse Riding Club BTB – Ruse, Equilibrium and Open Society Club – Ruse with the financial support of Open Society Institute – Sofia under phase 2 of the programme – ‘Empowering the Powerless in Times of Crisis’.
Sessions were provided for the physical and emotional rehabilitation of 6 children and a young man from the Pink House (our small group home) and an additional 5 children with special needs who are clients of the Centre for Social Support in the Complex.
Children who are formally classified as being at risk frequently exhibit challenging behaviour including aggression and hyperactivity and 13 young clients of the centre for social support had the opportunity to come to terms with their problems in communication and self-awareness and to gain more self-confidence through dynamic communication with the horses, helping at the stables and not least through days spent among nature.
All partners in the project were represented at the event in order to share in the promotion of this kind of service: Stoyanka Yordanova – head of the project from the Horse Riding Club BTB – Ruse, Milena Vlahova – operational director of the Complex, Nadezhda Petrova – manager of the Pink House and our colleagues and our partners from Open Society Club – Ruse, who were facilitators of the round-table.
Milena Vlahova shared her personal observations about the multiple effects of the hypotherapy and simple contact with the horses. She explained the physical benefits of riding as follows: “Hypotherapy contributes markedly to improvement of physical health – the muscles of the horses convey 100 impulses per minute. These vibrations pass to the rider through the back of the horse providing rhythmic movement back and forth, up and down and left and right. This ensures intensive training of the muscles, controls muscle strain, prevents contractures and improves posture. Hypotherapy stimulates the development of the own awareness and control. Moving on the back of a strong animal, which is managed independently by them, the children gain self-confidence and the trust they show towards the horse subsequently turns into greater trust for people.”
Using a series of images and emotional anecdotes, Nadezhda Petrova explained the remedial power of contact with horses and stressed the significant impact of the therapeutic riding on all of the children from the Pink House. The strong emotional and physical effects on children with cerebral palsy were acknowledged by the physiotherapist Elina Todorova who could even point out signs of the transformation when looking at the photographs.
Nadya finished her presentation with a thought from the French professor, J. Lalleri: “Horse riding provides a sense of independence, provokes you to adapt to the circumstances and you come to understand that it is possible to live with pleasure, not only with stress and pain.”
Discussion Group: Care-leavers
On 4th April, 2012 David Bisset and Elitsa Velikova joined other members of Ruse’s social welfare community and representatives of the business community in an event organised by the Foundation for Social Change and Inclusion (FSCI).
Representatives of the foundation provided information about their programme in Gabrovo that provides accommodation and mentoring support for young adults who are socially vulnerable because of their upbringing in an institution. They described their desire to replicate the model in Ruse.
This model entails accommodating teenagers in an environment that provides an opportunity for a style of semi-independent living (houses of opportunity). Mentors are on hand to provide support and supervision. The support is quite wide-ranging – instilling domestic and job-finding skills, social support and, acting as intermediaries with officialdom. An important element of the Gabrovo initiative is the creation of strong working relationships and continual dialogue with a support network from the educational and social welfare sectors, the employment agency and local employers.
The Gabrovo house of opportunity is the showpiece initiative of the FSCI, an organization that works for social development and inclusion of disadvantaged individuals, groups and communities. The organization hopes to create a network of houses of opportunity for young adults who have grown up in institutions as a means of transition into independent living in a world that they often find forbidding an confusing.
The Baba Tonka House in Ruse was set up under this scheme in June, 2011 with the support of a British organization - the Trussell Trust - and the discussion group was organized in order to build bridges between the service provider (FSCI) and potential local collaborators including the Centre for Social Support of Children and Families managed by EQ.
David and Elitsa contributed to the general discussion that covered a variety of topics that included the vulnerability profile of a typical care-leaver, shortcomings in the current support system and existing and proposed initiatives for creating more employment opportunities.
2011 Annual Conference: Key aspects of the work done at Ruse’s social services complex
Equilibrium’s annual conference took place on 23rd March 2012 in the Battenberg Hall of the Ruse Regional History Museum. Guests included representatives of the Child Protection Department, Social Assistance Directorate, municipal and regional administration and the new director of the municipal Humanitarian Activities Department – Irena Petrova. We were also joined by our official partners from Ruse’s Open Society Club (OSC) and the UK organization, Hope and Homes for Children (HHC).
The event was facilitated by Lora Sarkisian from OSC who introduced a number of speakers.
The annual activity was summarized by Milena Vlahova, operations director of the complex for social services who was followed by EQ’s chairman, David Bisset and biggest risk-taker who explained how organizational risk is managed at the complex.
The audience was touched by the insight into the lives of the children from the Pink House (our family-type home), provided by Nadezhda Petrova, who manages this facility and Elina Todorova, who is a occupational therapist. The substantial progress made by these children after their transfer from the isolated institution in Mogilino village proved that the care and love in a family environment can substantially reverse the effects of institutionalization.
The finale involved a screening of Arena Media’s film – ‘Transforming Lives’ that tells the story of the first closure of a baby institution in Bulgaria and the creation of a new centre for social services It also features the personal stories of a number of infants who were successfully placed with foster parents or reintegrated into their families. The film was introduced by Tsveta Nenova from Arena Media who explained her personal emotional investment in the venture as she actually undertook the interviews shown in the film.
We are very grateful to our hosts from the history museum which has become a favourite venue for EQ events. We also take this opportunity to thank Arena Media for their technical support.
Equilibrium presents nationally the key results in its Early Intervention Programme
Between 12th and 14th March 2012, the Karin Dom Foundation hosted a final conference for those organizations working on the project Development of the Early Intervention Service for Children with Special Needs in the Local Communities. The conference was attended by the following organizations: NGO Equilibrium – Ruse, RALIZ – Ruse, Hand for Help Foundation – Dobrich, NGO St. Mina – Dobrich, Samaritans – Stara Zagora, NGO Alternative 55 – Stara Zagora, National Alliance for Working with Volunteers – Plovdiv, NGO’s club in Targovishte, NGO Alternatives – Aitos. The project Development of the Early Intervention Service for Children with Special Needs in the Local Communities was undertaken with the financial support of the Tulip Foundation and Oak Foundation.
The conference was opened by Prof. Hristo Bozov, Deputy Mayor of Varna. Then Sevdzhihan Eyubova, a clinical psychologist at the hospital in Shumen, gave a presentation about “Synectica in Early Intervention or for the Different Approaches to the Common Goal”.
During the three days of the conference, paricipants shared their experience and demonstrated the best practices developed and piloted by those organizations that contributed to the Early Intervention Programme during the last 18 months. There were discussions around concrete cases and also on theme Stability of the Early Intervention Service at Local Level – Different Forms of Providing the Service. Milena Vlahova – director of the Ruse’s Complex for Social Services that is managed by Equilibrium, presented the results from the work of the Early Intervention team, best practices and trends in the development of the new service.
The conference ended with a workshop on Groups for Play – additional service by Early Intervention programme.
A professional forum took place on 28th and 29th of February 2012 in Grand Hotel Sofia which was organized by the Bulgarian Association for People with Intellectual Disabilities (BAPID) on the theme Early Intervention – Basic Steps and Challenges.
The forum was designed for experts, working in the field of early intervention, whose aim is to develop and to offer to the functional service in the context of the Bulgarian government’s deinstitutionalization programme.
The first day of the meeting involved the presentation of public policy for early intervention and also the experience of international organizations that develop early intervention service. Several organizations providing early intervention services for children with developmental deficits shared their experience – BAPID, whose representatives presented the results of the project At Home with Mum and Dad, implemented in Vidin; NGO Equilibrium presented its practice in the development of the Early Intervention for Children with Special Needs at Ruse’s Complex for Social Services and Karin Dom Foundation – Varna, which presented the experience they have through a film entitled “Family-oriented Practices in Early Intervention in Varna”. The film shows the outcomes of their project Development of Early Intervention Services for Children with Special Needs in Local Communities.
The programme for the second day involved four parallel sessions: early intervention working model, relevant professional competences, the role of parents and professional standards. The participants discussed and approved the guidelines to local authorities on the development and implementation of a management structure and policies for the services for children with disabilities and also the requisite profile and improved qualifications of the multidisciplinary teams working in the area of early intervention.
2012 Baba Marta Spring Festival
Equilibrium is very grateful to all of the people of Ruse who chose to buy martenitsi from ‘The Spring Tree’ of the Social Services Complex.
We sold over 2500 martenitsi, cards and also launched our newest product – the eco shoulder bag manufactured for us by students from the city’s school of fashion and design.
By raising almost 1300 leva we can continue our tradition of providing summer camps for children and we’ve started talking to other organisations about supporting the participation of youngsters in an ecological and cultural festival that takes place in the mountain resort of Uzana.
The campaign was successful thanks to the work, imagination and the support of many children, staff, friends and partners of Equilibrium including our adoptive parents group and volunteers who were busy for over two months and continued their efforts during the campaign period because demand was so high.
The campaign was supported also by the municipal and regional authorities – we were given free use of sales kiosk by authorisation of the mayor while the martenitsi distributed to the staff in the regional governor’s office came from the social services complex.
Young clients of the complex met Baba Marta (yes, the real Grandmother March – we found her in a retirement home for mythical creations). The children's theatre group ‘Camila’ performed ‘Why Baba Marta is Angry’ by Iliya Devedjiev. However, we would like to repeat that our Baba Marta was the real deal. The others are men dressed up.
There are a number of customs linked with the Baba Marta folk festival and these were given a comic twist as the young audience joined the action. Symbolically they cleared ‘the house’, raising dust (and quite a bit of noise), threw small red rags into the air, decorated a painted tree with spring flowers, and finally, of course, distributed martenitsi to all and sundry.
Equilibrium has a fruitful relationship with a youth group in the village of Dryanovets near Razgrad. In the introductory chapter of our publication on child participation we refer to some of the products of the relentlessly active imaginations of these youngsters (see EQ Publications – ‘It’s Child’s Play!’ for the full text). Between 1st and 4th March, with the blessing of the mayoress, some teenagers from the group helped interpret an exhibition designed for the senior citizens of the village who frequent the pensioners’ club.
The exhibition was a reinterpretation of something EQ did back in 2008. Here is an extract from the text referring to that earlier event –
‘During a seminar, Equilibrium’s chairman had shared a joke with schoolchildren and announced that Britain has martenitsi just like Bulgaria…………….he parallels between ancient Bulgarian practice and Celtic ritual preserved in Britain and Ireland thata are striking. Many ancient civilizations saw symbolism in the pairing or red and white. Today, tribal societies continue the practice. The colour symbolism is found in established religious practice and, indeed, it has evolved to become part of contemporary popular culture (although we may not always recognize this). The exhibition explores the entire theme from ancient times to the modern day.’
The youngsters did a wonderful job of interpreting the images and texts while distributing refreshments and EQ-martenitsi.
Programmes like this one depend heavily on the imagination, goodwill and commitment of a large number of people to whom we are eternally grateful.
Equilibrium Christmas campaign, 2011
Irrespective of our religion or how we feel about the commercialization of Christmas, we must accept that the celebrations introduce wonder and magic to the lives of children meaning that it is a time at which the disadvantage suffered by many youngsters is poignantly felt.
For a second year, we did everything we could to provide some of this magic to the vulnerable children we work with helped by of all our friends, partners and the generosity of the people of Ruse. This year, children, employees, foster and adoptive parents, students and friends of our organisation worked hard for more than a month to provide a stock of over 600 unique objects in a tsunamai of creativity – cards, souvenirs, candlesticks and table decorations and knitwear. We would like to thank them for donating their labour and special thanks to those who also provided their own materials.
This year’s campaign raised over 1125 leva (577 Euro). We provided a Christmas party and gift bags at the complex for more than sixty children, a party and presents for the eight disabled residents of the Pink House and distributed thirty gift bags to socially disadvantaged children in the nearby village of Dryanovets during the Christmas village show. Selections of treats were bought with the fundraised money while books, magazines and felt tip pens had been donated by generous benefactors.
The money raised will help fund activities at the Complex and outings for over 70 children during 2012. We would like to say a big thank you to all those who made donations or bought our hand-made crafts sold at the Christmas village in the city square and Mall Rouse. We must thank Plamen Stoilov, the city mayor, for providing us with a free hut and for his kind words of support of the campaign. In addition, this is not the first time we have benefited from the cooperation and kindness of the management at Mall Rouse. Again, a very big Thank you.
We have already embarked on our next campaign but it stays a secret until later.
Thank you all for your wonderful generosity that brought to life the Christmas spirit of kindness and joy for over 100 children in need.
We launched EQ facebook page in Bulgarian in September 2011
Very quickly we found many of our friends. Now we can communicate, exchange ideas and information with more than 500 friends, supporters, partner organisations and colleagues.