A Christmas gift for children in need

At the “Masha Belmustakova” Centre for Personal Development Support in the village of Borovan, 160 children from year 1 to year 7 receive educational support. Some of these children receive special educational support from a team with a resource teacher, a child psychologist and a speech therapist.
Our “A Christmas gift for children in need” campaign was a real success, thanks to compassionate and generous donors — we owe you our most sincere and deep thanks!
The O Plus company donated 37 school backpacks for boys and girls up to year 3, into which they added all kinds of school supplies — notebooks, pencil cases, pens, pencils, crayons and more — and we added a packet of Christmas chocolate surprises.
Kind-hearted employees of DSK Bank discovered our campaign on the Platform (thank you to our friends at the Bcause Foundation, whose support made this possible) and made a generous donation, with which we provided wash bags with personal hygiene kits for the other 123 children up to year 7. In each wash bag, every child got shampoo, toothpaste and a toothbrush, a hairbrush or comb, nail clippers, hand soap, a roll-on deodorant and more chocolate surprises.
The cosmetics company Aven donated more shampoos and facial cleansing lotions, which also went into the wash bags — thank you to them too.

When we arrived at the Centre in Borovan, 24 children from the folk dance school, the “Slaveyche” vocal group and the “History through Tales” club were waiting for us. They put on a beautiful performance, reciting Christmas poems, singing Christmas songs — and we were the first audience to watch several folk dances from the newly formed school.
The whole performance took place in front of the Christmas tree, with the gifts beneath it. The children's happiness was beyond words! We made time to play with them and let them explore their gifts.
The aim of these gifts is also to contribute to the children's health education. And to make it even more useful, Dr Stefan Tonchev from our friends and partners at the National Network of Health Mediators ran an oral hygiene training session in the form of a game. Everyone crowded around him to get hold of the tooth models, generously provided by Dr Mihail Dalemski, and to “brush” them.
Thank you to NNHM for all the health education materials they specially developed for children — booklets, stickers, flyers and more — which were an important part of reaching our end goal: helping the children understand the importance of personal hygiene.
In total, our campaign included 160 gifts; we personally handed out 24 of them to the children who had come to put on the performance for us. The rest of the gifts were handed out personally by the director of the “Masha Belmustakova” Centre to the children from the football and volleyball clubs in Borovan village, to the children from the “Fairy-tale Calendar” and “Skilful Little Hands” clubs in Dobrolevo village, and to the children from the football club and “Nature Studies” circle in Malorad village.
The children's joy and gratitude give us the drive to keep delivering this campaign to the very end. Get involved in our social campaigns with a donation, and stay tuned for more news very soon.