WHY SUPPORT THE TEAM?
Become part of the Care Bear Community! Support our team with a monthly donation of $12 or more and help us continue to exist to fight for the future of talented Bulgarian children in need. Each new monthly donor will become part of a closed group on Facebook, where we will post special reports, news, behind-the-scenes materials and the development and success stories of the talented children we help! You will be able to meet regularly with our team and hear about our battles, challenges and future plans, and everyone can actively participate with ideas and recommendations. If You donate towards this cause, write to info@plushenomeche and send us Your Facebook, so we can add You to the Closed Community Group there.
In 17 years we have donated 117 225 Christmas gifts to children and elderly in need. Our Christmas campaign is run entirely by volunteers, but did you know that we are NOT active only on Christmas! After years of visiting orphanages, we saw the same problem everywhere – talented young people who do not have the opportunity to pursue higher education or a career. That is why we decided to be a part of their lives all year round, because they deserve much more!
In 2017, we created a year-round mentoring program “The Hidden Talents of Bulgaria”. This educational project provides a chance for professional realization for young people deprived of parental care or at risk. The program supports young people in entering university or starting work by providing access to: private lessons, qualification courses, work with a personal mentor and psychologist, textbooks and equipment, scholarships, university fees. For the last 7 years, we have 19 accepted students and several young people who have started work.
In order for this Program to exist and for us to work with different young people from all over the country every year and pave the way for a better future for them, there must be a team that fights for them every day. Our team consists of three full-time people and two part-time psychologists – Misha, Geri, Mimi, Didi and Galya. Every year we quickly find the funds for the children’s lessons, psychological support, courses, scholarships, textbooks and fees, but it is always the biggest struggle to find funds for the salaries of our team.
Therefore, we ask YOU – the friends of the Bear – to support our team. During the 2024-2025 school year, our team works with a total of 42 students across the country. We need your help to continue working with them in 2025 and to give others a chance in the next school year. On this page you can get acquainted with the job descriptions of each team member in detail, to understand why there should be a full-time team. Thank you for supporting us – the Bear team!
What does the manager – Mihaela Kacharova do?
- Looks for partners, sponsors, volunteers, mentors and teachers
- Supports corporate partnerships
- Prepares individual reports, budgets and reports for talents from the Program
- Organizes meetings between sponsors and talents
- Maintains social networks and the website
- Develops all advertising materials, visions for social. networks and presentations
- Grant applications
- Prepares campaigns to search for new participants in the mentoring program and the Christmas campaign
- Coordinates monthly material donations to social services in the country
- Organizes charity events
- Prepares the annual activity report
- Prepares the annual budget and plan for the year
- Prepares documents for the Annual Financial Statement
- Prepares donation certificates
- Communicates with the media and prepares press releases
- Develops products with a cause
- Conducts interviews for admission to the Talent and Mentor Program
- Organizes individual fundraising campaigns for talents
- Assists talents in finding internships and jobs
- Organizes the annual volunteer gathering and talent and mentor gathering
- Prepares and sends e-mail newsletters
What does the Program Coordinator – Gergana Yordanova – do?
- Prepares all civil contracts with teachers, applications, recommendations and acceptance and transfer protocols
- Contacts all social services for youth deprived of parental care for the start of recruiting new candidates for the Program
- Prepares an Individual Support Plan and a Report on achieved goals for each talent
- Tracks each individual youth and their development in the Program
- Coordinates the activities of each youth
- Communicates monthly with all talents, private teachers, class teachers, parents, social workers, mentors, coaches and directors
- Procures all necessary materials, textbooks, supplies, equipment and technology
- Conducts individual meetings with students when needed
- Prepares the annual volunteer meeting
- Organizes and conducts interviews for admission to the Program and for admission of mentors
- Prepares the monthly individual reports of each talent
- Prepares the annual budgets of all talents
- Prepares the organization of live mentor trainings
- Assists with registration, preparation, welcoming, accommodation, stay and participants in various events outside their locality such as: camps, open-air events, trainings, workshops and others
- Assists in settling newly admitted students in accommodation or dormitories
- Organizes camps and trainings for talents
What does the Technical Secretary – Maria Dzhambazova – do?
- Maintains and moves all administrative documentation
- Updates the donation book
- Prepares the general monthly report of the association and publishes it on our website
- Maintains the database of social services, schools and kindergartens
- Prepares and sends all products with a cause
- Assists in organizing charity events
- Welcomes and accommodates talents when visiting Sofia
- Organizes the annual volunteer gathering
- Collects all contracts for participation in the Christmas campaign
- Accommodates students in a dormitory or apartment
- Calculates monthly salaries to private teachers
- Maintains communication with social services for various donation campaigns
- Prepares preliminary accounting documents for the General Financial Statement
- Maintains the cash book and product availability book
- Prepares preliminary information and documents for the annual activity report
- Translates materials from Bulgarian to English
- Maintains the office
What does the psychologist – Galina Romeeva do?
Galina Romeeva helped build the overall framework of our mentoring program. She participates in the selection of talents, mentors and teachers for the Program. Galina also trains our mentors through virtual and live trainings, leads joint trainings with talents and mentors at the start of the year, is responsible for our team building with volunteers from all over the country and helps with staff selection. Galina holds monthly meetings with each mentor who directly works with talent in the Program and follows up on each individual case, provides guidance for work and recommendations for improving processes.
What does the sports psychologist – Diana Vangelova – do?
Diana Vangelova is our sports psychologist. She participates in the selection of talents for the Program. The funds for her activities are provided through donations to the individual budgets of each athlete we work with. Diana conducts weekly consultations with the athletes, as well as monthly with their coaches.
She works on confidence, resilience, focus and concentration, motivation, stress management, stopping fears, emotions, successes, failures and unrealistic expectations. She teaches them techniques and mental skills to build strategies to improve their performance and achieve high results. She monitors their development by making live observations of their training and participation in competitions and adapts their program according to current performance.
She created a unique author’s program that includes working with the entire team (coaches, therapists, parents, team, mentors) in order to realize the athlete’s maximum potential according to their individual capabilities.
