Bulgarian Aid

On 26th November we sent a lorry load of Aids for Disabled People to Rouse, Bulgaria. There were in excess of 700 items, Zimmer frames, wheelchairs, perching stools, rollators (3 wheel walkers), leg rests, commodes, over the toilet seats, crutches etc.

In the pictures below you can see the driver presenting the Manifest in Rouse – safely delivered. 10 Rotarians from two Rotary Clubs in Rouse and 2 members of the Bulgarian Red Cross unloaded the lorry very quickly and everything is now in the Store.  We hope to take part in the distribution when we go to Bulgaria next week.

Physionet, a charity that collect aids for disabled children, offered us all these Aids for Adults. The lorryload had to be send very quickly because Physionet had to empty their Store. It has cost us £3000 to send the container, but the new value of the contents is about £100,000.

We are desperately looking for funding to pay this bill, so we are encouraging people donate - us here at Bulgarian Aid and the people of Bulgaria will be very grateful.

Christine was presented with a framed letter of thanks from 'The Association for the Preservation of Women' in Varna.

They help retired women, mostly widows who have very small pensions. We donated food which was given to these ladies in food parcels, approx 100 people benefitted.

On February 25th 2016, we collected a lot of Items to help people with disabilities to live more comfortably. We will be taking a lot of Zimmer walking frames, trollies with trays on them for moving about indoors, some three wheeled walkers with bags on them that help people to be independent be doing their own shopping, bed trays on wheeled stands that slide under a bed or chair, 'perching stools' that are higher than a chair and give support to people preparing food etc at a worktop and we will also be taking special seats to raise the height of a toilet seat. These things can be seen in the pictures below.

8 family and friends helped load a 40ft container today (22/03/2016) with 400 boxes of medical supplies, 4 tonnes of food products, 50 Zimmer Frames,  walkers with wheels and bags, lots of walking sticks and arm crutches, perching stools, over the bed tables, commodes, 350 shoe box gifts for children, 2 pallets of colostomy supplies for patient use and a pallet of incontinence products. We also packed many personal gift bags for adults and a huge number of hats, gloves and scarves which will be distributed to those in need.

Some of the food products will help the Soup Kitchens but most will be made up into food parcels for individuals. Many of the recipients will be those fed at Soup Kitchens in Varna every day. These people are mostly pensioners whose pensions are very small (in the region of £25 a week). The high protein food we are able to supply will help them to make nourishing meals with the addition of the cheaper pasta and vegetables they are able to afford.

The medical supplies are eagerly awaited by the hospital doctors and many people with a disability are hoping to receive an aid to mobility when the container arrives.

We expect the container to arrive in Varna in April and hope that we will be able to distribute everything before Easter in Bulgaria. We think it will make a lot of people very happy.

The container was discharged on 25/04/2016

Our recent trip to Bulgaria (October 2014) has made the press recently and featured in an edition of the Hull Daily Mail. Click here to view the article.

We appeared in the The Goole Times at the end of January. Click here to view the article.