The Refugee Project

This project facilitates social inclusion of asylum-seeker and refugee children through education and extracurricular activities using an innovative model of cooperation among volunteers, NGOs and the State Agency for Refugees. The objective is to provide daily, individualized educational assistance and extracurricular activities in the integration center in Ovcha Kupel to ease the integration of the children.

The project started in 2010 as an initiative of CVS-Bulgaria and in 2011 it became a joint project with Caritas Sofia. Since then, over 200 volunteers have been involved in the project. They are facing a complex environment, due to the increasing number of children, their different ages, different educational levels and different mother tongues. Therefore, the volunteers are recruited only after an extensive selection and training procedure. After that, they are capable to not only provide assistance in the regular Bulgarian lessons but only also to conduct their own Bulgarian lessons. Besides that, English lessons are organized for all children and youngsters who want to study. And, last but not least, different arts and sports workshops and events are held (e.g. visiting interesting cultural places, making candles and bracelets and celebrating different holidays).

Contact: therefugeeproject@gmail.com