Yambol orphanage

When we first thought of moving here we heard all sorts of horror stories about Bulgaria's orphanages.

Lack of Medical care, lack of basic necesssities we were told of babies left screaming in their cots and cribs etc etc ..... So we thought is there anything that we can we do to help make a small difference to these children.

So we had a Going away /Birthday party when we left the UK and suggested to the guests invited that instead of giving me birthday gifts (which we had no room in the car for) that they might consider donating a small gift of money to be shared between both the Orphanages we are interested in.

And gave they did we were delighted to receive the fantastic sum of £520.

But what do we do with it?

I would really like to be able to build a Sensory room in Yambol Orphanage which isn't just an Orphanage but it is also a Childrens Hospital which houses many children with a variety of illnesses but of course this money would not stretch that far so that has been placed on the back burner for a while until we raise more funds.

The other Orphanage that we want to support as well is Elhovo Orphanage which caters for older children up to the age of 18 after which they are placed in Adult institutions.

We did have the chance to visit Yambol Orphanage and we had a fantastic time there. Ive never seen so well behaved children, Myself, Karen,Keith and Darren were accompanied By Mitco who acted as our translator.

We were shocked and more than pleasantly surprised at what we saw. The kids were spotlessly clean the Orphanage was spotlessly clean although the equipment was quite dated and the staff very very pleasant not at all what we were expecting. We asked the Orphanage manager if there was anything we could take in with us apart from the clothes and shoes etc that we took her reply was very simply "Just some sweets for the kids" so indeed that's what we took.

Bag's of sweeties for the kids...... Their little faces when they saw them was a picture one of the carers beckoned the children to come and get some sweeties..... there was no grabbing no pushing no shoving they just stood there and accepted this little gift of course the ones who were able to say Blagodari (thankyou) did.

We will be going to the orphanage on a regular basis as Keith has volunteered to do some repair work that they need done. There are a few of us that support the orphanage on a regular basis and will continue to do so.

The list of places needing help is phenomenal you can't of course help all of them but we can try.

And there is even an Old peoples home crying out for help as well, We are trying to get the Old peoples home to work along side the Orphanage to teach the older kids basic life skills such as knitting, sewing,etc etc.

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We also donated 600 leva to FC Gagarin which was formed by Darren and Nikki Weeks who have done a fantastic job with the boys there are a wide group of ages from 6 upwards. They are in a village called Krumovo and the lads and of course girls now are mostly of Roma descent.

The older lads are actually now playing league football and are the first team in many many years

We have been to watch them paying for a few games now and we really enjoy doing so.