Nadja Centre Foundation was founded in 1995 along with the new program started by the Bulgaria Women’s Union for helping women who have experienced physical, sexual and psychological violence with the financial support by Novib, the Netherlands. There are professionals in the center coming from different areas – doctors, jurists, social workers and psychologists who support the women, victims of violence. There are volunteers and partners in Centre Nadja Foundation who actively take part in the activities of the centre. Centre Nadja Foundation offers telephone consultations and provides information, psychological, medical, social and legal consultation, psychotherapy and referrals of the ones who need help to other services and specialists. The first shelter founded in Bulgaria, offering support and protection to women and their children, victims of domestic violence, started functioning under the protection of Centre Nadja Foundation in April 1997. During their stay in the shelter, the victims have the opportunity, with the help of the professional consultants, to understand their experiences and to start planning their lives ahead. At the end of 2003 the work of the shelter had to be suspended due to the increase of the difficulties regarding the finding of financial support and the lack of legal regulation for the support of the institutions. Despite of the difficulties, the team of Centre Nadja Foundation was actively involved with the raising of awareness on the problems which violence against women pose in the society and was an active collaborator with many national services and institutions – police, court, prosecutor’s court, health institutions, and with non-governmental organizations – national and foreign. During all these years the center was financially supported by foreign contributors.
Since its founding there have been 13 238 telephone consultations, 4 716 consultations in the center, from which 2 670 victims were helped with psychotherapy and 1 038 were given juridical consultations.
The Foundation is a focal point for Bulgaria in the European network of “Women against the violence in Europe” (WAVE). It is also an active participant in the yearly International Conference, where the standards for work in specialized centers and shelters for victims of domestic violence as a part of the European Committee were presented and approved. Furthermore, our organization is a member of the coordination board of the Bulgarian-European Lobby, part of the European Women’s Lobby, and is actively involved in the working informal networks as the “Coalition Against Violence”, “National Network for Equal Opportunities” etc. During the projects of Women’s Alliance for Development (WAD), Bulgarian Youth Red Cross and the Catholic Services for help, trainers from our organization provided training seminars for national employees and members of nongovernmental organizations on the themes for aggression, violence and trafficking in human beings. An expert from the team was included in the training team during the specialized courses for magistrates, conducted in 5 different regions in 2004 by the Ministry of Justice in USA, the US Embassy, Sofia and was also included in the courses as a part of the Diplomatic Institute on Prevention of Human Trafficking.
The role of Centre Nadja Foundation and to its partnership nongovernmental organizations is to provide alternative programs, based on the strong collaboration between the center and the national institutions, services and with the police and the local authorities. The successful implementation of the socio-psychological programs is a necessary step towards the decrease of violence.
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