On the evening of 24th June David, Eli and Lyuba hosted an event in the theatre next to the Ruse's music school. The evening was designed to mark the culmination of the ambitious foster care campaign orchestrated from the social services complex that has seen small teams travel the length and breadth of Ruse region and give presentations in 30 different towns and villages.

Eli, our communications coordinator, gave a powerful talk that both demonstrated the scale of our undertaking that started back in February and the daunting task that remains to be fulfilled. By way of example, Eli quoted extensively from a draft concept paper taken from the literature of the National Children's Network that outlines the likely steps of a national action plan for the closure of the country's 32 baby homes. The country needs 700 foster families to support the process together with a framework of integrated services preventing the abandonment of infants, supporting vulnerable families and providing alternatives to institutionalisation for those children who have to enter the care system.

David wielded his guitar while far younger and more gifted musicians - Vihren and Elena - provided a haunting musical accompaniment to the images and messages shown to the audience. Lyuba acted as both photographer and laptop operator.

We are pleased to say that most of those personnel who took part in the campaign were among the audience. David applauded their efforts and emphasised the part played by the various child protection departments.

We'd like to thank the music school for both the use of the hall and the important technical support provided. Our partners at the Open Society Club helped with publicity and we are grateful for their contonuous support to our ventures.

On Saturday 26th June, Ruse Carnival reached its climax- a team from the complex took a small group of children to take part in the traditional procession among masses of other children from the city. The children had worked with our colleagues from Arena Media to prepare dolphin masks which they proudly wore.

Unfortunately, courage evaporated when it came to the time to step on stage and only the two bravest dolphins joined David and Tsveta Nenova (from Arena) in front of the crowd. Having said this, our kids were among the noisiest in the crowd and they occupied a privileged position close to the stage. Little VIPs.

The kids had a great time. Thanks to Arena, the team members - Eli and Georgi - who escorted the children and let's not forget Gosho, our driver who did amazing things with a minbus to get close to the square and then helped ensure everyone got home safely.

What a Day -The Ruse Centre for Social Support has a tradition of staging children’s events on 1st June which is, of course, the International Day of the Child.

This year, we felt like doing something slightly different by extending the duration of the activities and throwing the doors of the facility open so that children from the neighbourhood could participate. This proved especially valuable for mums on what turned out to be a rather cold and miserable day.

From roughly 10.00 until 12.30 the complex was teeming with children, many of them from the pre-school age-group. However, during this period, our good friends from RALIS arrived with a group of young adults with disabilities who threw themselves into the melee with great enthusiasm. A team coordinated by Eli, Roumi and Toni linked face-painting and with the decoration of clay models and a great deal of other messy play. The older kids especially enjoyed throwing darts at paint-filled balloons while a group of weenies emptied the ball pool in the playroom while searching for a miniature car someone had lost. It was enjoyable bedlam.

After a lunchtime break, Eli, Roumi, Toni, David and his daughter, Annie gave karaoke performances to a large and enthusiastic audience that joined in the dancing and singing. This event was charmingly compered by Eli. The adult performers were joined by teenaged clients from Striklevo who just love to dance.

We’d like to thank Arena Media for the provision of sound equipment and technical support. The Open Society Club provided 50 T-shirts that were distributed to young participants during the afternoon. These bear the butterfly emblem of the complex.

Above our reception desk hangs a vivid reminder of the fun and games, a large tableaux covered in hand-prints and messages from children too numerous to mention by name. Over all, between 80 and 90 children participated in one way or another. A fabulous day!

Mini-journalists: Collaboration between Arena Media and the team at KSUDS - Equilibrium and Arena Media have collaborated a great deal over the years. We now work together in close proximity and this means that the opportunities for doing things together have increased.

Since the beginning of March 2010, a group of youngsters have been enjoying close-up contact with the glamorous world of film and journalism. They’ve learned to interview one another, recite text for recording and they’ve had enormous fun doing puzzles together as a way of learning about visual composition.