If I would be asked to give Caritas a human face, I would give it a woman’s face. We do not need to do a serious research to find out that the majority of care workers in Caritas are women. It is just visible! At the same time, research has shown that the majority of ...
Address: Oborishte Street 9, 1504 Sofia, Bulgaria
Telephone: +359 2 944 18 58 Fax: +359 2 946 11 33
Email: caritas@caritas.bg
Facebook: Caritas-Bulgaria Twitter: CaritasBulgaria
www.caritas.bg
Caritas Bulgaria is a Bulgarian non-profit organisation which does social work to support vulnerable people in society. Established in 1993 by decision of the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in Bulgaria, Caritas Bulgaria follows its mission to create a more humane and just society in which all people, especially the very poor and the oppressed, may lead a fulfilled life. In pursuit of this goal, Caritas Bulgaria supports its member organisations which carry out social activities via their local structures in various regions in Bulgaria.
The main areas in which Caritas Bulgaria concentrates its activities are: providing social, health and educational care and services; response to emergency situations; advocacy activities aimed at the Bulgarian government to develop and implement long-term, effective social policies that lead to sustainable improvement of the quality of life of the poor and the vulnerable.
The social, health and educational care and services provided by Caritas Bulgaria through its member organisations are in support of: the elderly; children and young people with disabilities; children and youth at risk; people dependent on psychoactive substances; asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants; single mothers; homeless people; and people affected by natural disasters.
- For the elderly Caritas provides home care services. There are eight Caritas Home Care Centres in Sofia, Ruse, Belene, Bardarskygeran, Plovdiv, Rakovsky, Malko Tarnovo and Zhitnitsa. Via Caritas mobile teams, they provide social services and health care at the homes of needy elderly people. Pokrovan has a Day Care Centre for elderly people who are lonely.
- For children and young people at risk Caritas carries out various activities to support their education and organise their leisure time. In Kuklen and Banya (Nova Zagora), there are centres for after-school interests. In Rouse, Malko Tarnovo, Sofia, Oresh and Malchika, Social Support Centres provide social and educational care for children living in poverty, and representatives of vulnerable groups. Various activities are carried out with children and adolescents to prevent drug addiction and human trafficking. ***
- For children and young people with disabilities there are Caritas Centres in Rouse, Vratsa, Belene, Sofia and Veselinovo, which provide complex social services – kinesitherapy, work-therapy, psychotherapy, speech therapy, art therapy and other specialised activities.
- For people dependent on psycho-active substances Caritas implements a mobile care pre-treatment programme in Sofia. The people we care for are provided with primary medical aid, anonymous testing for blood-transmitted infections, consultations about treatment opportunities and methods, consultations of parents and friends, and free medical examinations.
- For refugees, migrants and asylum seekers the Caritas Centre for Integration of Refugees and Migrants operates in Sofia, providing psychological assistance, educational services, social consultations, humanitarian assistance, and practical assistance for housing and work. Caritas staff and volunteers also provide educational activities for the refugee in centres at the State Agency for Refugees.
- For single mothers a social Caritas Centre in Sofia provides professional care, counselling and services to single mothers raising their children on their own.
- For homeless people there is a mobile Caritas Centre in Burgas, and a shelter and a Centre for social rehabilitation and integration in Rousse. These services provide homeless people with food, clothing, social counselling and psychological assistance.
- For people affected by natural disasters Caritas carries out activities relating to urgent humanitarian support and rehabilitation.
Caritas Bulgaria is a member of: Caritas Internationalis; the Bulgarian Council on Refugees and Migrants; the Bulgarian Platform for International Development; the National Council on Social Inclusion Issues at the Council of Ministers; Christian Organisations against Trafficking in Human Beings (COATNET).
Updates from Europe
Two years after the beginning of the war and nearly a decade after the conflict in the east of the country, the humanitarian situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate and will not improve if hostilities do not stop. This is the picture described by the two local Caritas organisations – Caritas Ukraine and Caritas-Spes Ukraine ...
Once upon a time, in a country where laughter mingled with tears and hope shone even in the darkest of times, there lived a little Ukrainian girl named Milana. Milana was a funny, pretty girl with sparkling eyes that held galaxies of curiosity and wonder. Her infectious laughter echoed through the corridors of the Caritas ...
This project, in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, offers 800 children and an additional 200 parents from socially precarious and economically disadvantaged backgrounds help and support, in coping with everyday life every year and now more important than ever. At the beginning of the war, many of the project beneficiaries fled to other parts ...
Yasmine Halalish lives in Aleppo with her husband, Fathi Moustafa, as the stepmother of three children: Raneem, who needs special health care, Tasneem and Mouhammad Moustafa. Their birth mother died. Please tell me about the time after the earthquake. Did you receive any aid? «We did receive aid from Caritas Syria: canned food, hygiene kits ...
One year after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit Turkey and Syria on 6 February 2023, local Caritas organisations, supported by the entire Caritas network, continue to support the local population in dire need. In Turkey, the National Caritas, together with Caritas Anatolia, supported by Caritas Istanbul and Izmir, have been active from the first moments, ...
We could finally afford to live in the house of our dreams. It was outside the centre of Homs, the family home, big and spacious. After years of hard work as a teacher, my husband had saved enough money to renovate it. I was happy, finally our children would have enough space to grow up happy. ...
As the Armenian Caritas is already present near the border to assist evacuees leaving Nagorno-Karabakh, the international confederation mobilises funds and calls all parties to respect human rights. As of today, over 60,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh have fled to Armenia following a nine-month long blockade of the region and last week’s military intervention. Caritas Internationalis ...
Torrential rains that affected the area of Thessaly in Greece in early September lead to devastating consequences in all disaster-affected zones and villiages in Volos, Pilion, Trikala, Karditsa and in the Thessalia plain region. A week after the devastating floods, the amount of mud damage to thousands of homes and hundreds of businesses has increased ...
“Russia’s attack on the Caritas-Spes Ukraine warehouse in Lviv last night, destroying 300 tonnes of humanitarian aid for the people of Ukraine, was an outrage and a flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law,” states Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis Alistair Dutton from New York, where he is attending the UN General Assembly and where Ukrainian ...
Caritas Europe Info
- Albania
- Andorra
- Armenia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- England and Wales – CAFOD
- England and Wales – CSAN
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Georgia
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Italy
- Kosovo
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macedonia
- Malta
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russian Federation
- Scotland
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Turkey
- Ukraine
- Ukraine – SPES