Children from two orphanages in Bulgaria will be selling their handiworks at a December 7 bazaar, part of the Chovek 5 and Nikola Shmirgela foundations' ongoing work to help support such children make an independent life for themselves, while learning a craft.

The children's social care homes taking part this year are the Nikola Dramaliev Relief School-Boarding School in Samokov and the Dobro Surtse Day Home for Children with Disabilities in Pernik. In Samokov, the institution houses 46 children with slight oligophrenia (ie, less than normal development) and from socially disadvantaged families; in the Pernik home, 26 seriously disabled children live.

Art therapy is used at the two institutes as a mean to develop the children's skills and also to help provide a way for them to express emotions and ideas that they cannot formulate in words.

Items for sale at the Christmas bazaar include sewn goods and ceramics that the children crafted while at the homes.

Money collected will be given to help support the establishments, and to bring a bit of Christmas cheer to the children there. Art therapy supplies will also be purchased. Organisers wrote in the press release that, maybe, all things allowing, they would also be able to go on an excursion.

They also underlined that the goal of the bazaar was not to gather clothing or sweets for the children, instead because "supporting the efforts of the children to work in textile and ceramics workshops would give them the possibility to continue to work at such places, which is something that brings them great pleasure and helps them to feel useful and significant".
 
The Christmas bazaar is being held on December 7 2008 from noon to 2pm in the hall of Slavyanskoto Drouzhestvo, at 6 Slavyanska Str (corner of Slavyanska and Rakovski) in Sofia.

Two days before, on December 5, the foundations Chovek 5 and Nikola Shmirgela are holding another charity-focused event in Sofia.

Make an Angel with Me (Napravi angel s men/Направи ангел с мен), a joint initiative of Mobiltel, Vitosha Gallery and Nikola Shmirgela Atelier-Gallery in Sofia, brought children from social care homes in Sofia and Pernik and from the SOS village in Dren together with Bulgarian artists Yulia Stankova, Georgi Tkachov, Rossen Rashev, Penka Minchev and Bozhidar Bonev to create various forms of art, all with the theme of angels.

The exhibition of creations aims to "remove the anonymity of abandoned children, to show them as individuals, as artists, as persons with unique representations of the world of man and angel". Proceeds from the sales will go to help create a ceramics atelier for the children at the home in Dren.

The event on December 5 starts at 7pm at Nikola Shmirgela Gallery, at 30 General Parsenov Str in Sofia.