We are excited to announce our new project, which is for the cause of autism. Within the next year we would like to help specifically seven centers across Bulgaria which specialize in the care of children on the autism spectrum.

The case of autism is still a taboo in Bulgaria. In fact there is currently no official statistics by the Bulgarian government for the number of children with autism in the country. As such there is no real measure of the needed support. While early detection and specialized care is key and can have a tremendous impact on the development and social integration of these children, most of them never get the help they need due to lack of or inadequate government day care centers or inability of their parents to pay the fee at the private ones. Many parents are also not educated on the specific needs their children have, don’t get proper support and are often embarrassed to seek help, which results in both child and parent locked at home, deprived of living a life with dignity.

After speaking with specialists and parents of autistic children on how to make the biggest impact for these children we outlined our priorities in terms of help we would like to provide. Our goal is to raise $100,000 and help centers that provide (or are on their way to provide) full day care for children on the autistic spectrum. Our help will include specialized equipment and materials, assistance with covering operating  expenses and access to training for their staff and support for the parents. We plan to make every effort to give the public full insight into the life of these children in order to improve perceptions of the condition and challenges they face and hopefully attract more funding in this so neglected sphere.

After careful research we identified the following centers whose operating model aligned with our priorities and as such will benefit from our campaign:

• Children’s Day Center ‘Kapchici’, city of Shumen
• Day Center for children on the autism spectrum ‘Duga’, city of Sofia
• Center for social rehabilitation and integration for children on the autism spectrum, city of Sofia
• Day Center for children with disabilities, city of Svishtov
• Centers for applied behavioral analysis and complex therapy for children with autism, city of Burgas and City of Vratsa (to open in 2021)
• Center for Social Rehabilitation and Integration for Children with Disabilities ‘Pod Dagata’, city of Varna

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