At ZOV, we care about the future of the children we work with and we are the only charity in the area which keeps supporting the children throughout their childhood and young adult life. We believe in the importance of preparing young people for a positive future, so giving them independence is one of our key aims.
We do this in a number of ways:
- Supporting and providing young people with paid work experience and employment through schemes and relationships with the local community. This also contributes to positively integrating them into their local community.
- Support to apply for and gain university places and ongoing support throughout university life.
- Education Club for approx 142 children with individual help from student mentors and professionals, helping children to pass school exams and motivate them to study and prevent them from leaving school prematurely.
- Specialist support provided at the homes for children with disabilities through a range of therapy, meaning some children no longer need the use of a wheelchair.
- Provision of grants for children to attend university who otherwise could not attend.
- In 2016 and 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021 100% and 83% in 2018 of children who left the homes in which we work found jobs or continued on to further education. This compares to 20% prior to our work.
- 430 students have provided mentoring and educational support to over 340 children
- 42 children have found part time or full time employment with 89 receiving paid work experience as part of the Outreach work experience or qualification sessions.
- Since 2012 with ZOV’s support, over 90% of children who wanted to attend university have passed exams and secured a place.
Kristian, Emily and Toshko: were part of both our Mentoring and Educational club for three years. They have always lived in an orphanage and have no parents. Nobody believed that they would integrate into society or ever go to university. Thanks to the educational club, Kristian has been accepted to study Sports Pedagogy at university, Emily to study Philosophy, and Toshko to study Social Pedagogy. ZOV helped them to find their own strengths and to become students.
“Thank you for all the help, study, hard work and support you have given me in the last couple of years. You showed me that I can do it and I believed in myself” Emily
Georgi is a 9-year-old boy with a severe physical disability who was abandoned in an orphanage when he was a baby. He could not walk at all and when ZOV met him he was in a wheelchair. Since then ZOV has been working with Georgi on a weekly basis through our children’s club program The biggest success for us all is that Georgi now walks alone, without requiring a wheelchair or other help. He has also recently started saying a few words in an attempt to communicate.
“ I see raised motivation to study with the children, thank you for all the time you have given to our children as there is nobody to help them at education when they come back from school” Marika Kostadinova, a teacher at Family centre 3
