Donations Allow Bulgarian Organization to Aid Children and Disabled
The Cedar Foundation is a Bulgarian-registered, public-benefit charity organization that focuses on deinstitutionalization. This process closes down large institutions for disabled and disadvantaged children and adults and instead provides them with family-type, community-based, residential services. In this way, they can be easily integrated into society.
The foundation has its headquarters in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and also maintains offices in the towns of Kyustendil and Kazanlak. It works in partnership with the local and central governmental authorities to create high-quality preventative and alternative social services for children and young people with disabilities in line with internationally recognized standards of care.
In the fall of 2010, The Cedar Foundation successfully closed down a large institution for mentally disabled children and young people with disabilities in the village of Gorna Koznitsa. The majority of the residents were relocated in alternative family-type environments where they now receive proper care and individual attention to their needs from the staff members.
The Cedar Foundation is now managing four small family-type centers for children with intellectual disabilities, each one housing four children, in the town of Kyustendil. In the same location, the organization also provides a family setting for eight adults with disabilities, living in two apartments of four people each. In addition, the foundation provides ongoing training sessions for the social therapists employed in the alternative services by experts from Bulgaria and overseas in order to increase their professional qualifications and thus improve the lives of the children and youth under their care.
This donated Microsoft Office 2010 software package was installed on the computers of the Cedar Foundation employees and has made their work much smoother and more efficient ever since. It has allowed the staff to get web tasks done quickly, create better marketing and fundraising materials for the Cedar Foundation, and thus attract more donors and supporters to the cause.
