It’s the third consecutive year of Rent-a-grandchild initiative in the Rhodope municipality of Madan. For six months eight volunteers from Bulgaria and Turkey help the elderly and lonely people in the region.

Rent-a-grandchild is a project of the Association "Children with Special Needs". It is realized with the financial support of the European Solidarity Corps, project manager Emilia Georgieva told BNR.

"Rent-a-grandchild aims to alleviate two pressing problems in our society, on the one hand - the care for the elderly, on the other hand - youth unemployment and in particular that of young people with special needs."

The project started in mid-March and will run for six months. The volunteers have already taken several training modules on working with the elderly, overcoming culture shock and living together.

"A volunteer service comes with a lot of challenges and it is change of routine for the young participants," Emilia Georgieva says.

After the adaptation process, they will start visiting the smaller settlements in Madan municipality, where mostly elderly people live. Local mayors and deputy mayors will facilitate the contacts with the locals.

"They have lists of lone older people who would like to participate in the program. The elderly welcome our young helpers with their typical warm Rhodope hospitality. Then each person tells what work they need to get done - to have their garden dug, their house cleaned, a room painted, furniture moved or medicine bought. We buy the materials we need and get to work."

True friendships are made while doing useful work, says Emilia. As an interesting aspect of the project, she highlights the initiative "On the village square", in which young people teach older people to work with social networks.

In this way, the free communication of the past that happened on the village square can continue virtually in the spirit of the new times. "It's a lot of fun and it is useful," she insists. Volunteers often seek the advice and opinions of the people they help and so they get the feeling of being useful and still relevant. "Our volunteers are really replacing the missing grandchildren of these people to a certain extent," says the president of the Association for Children with Special Needs .

Experience so far has shown that community service and communication with the elderly help the participants in the project to mature.

Two unemployed young people with special needs who have completed their education, are taking part in the Rent-a-grandchild program.

Ayşe Gül from Turkey chose to participate in order to fulfil a dream of hers - to volunteer in a country in the region. "My first opportunity was Bulgaria and so I came here. This is a long-term commitment. I am aware of the responsibility," says the young girl.

Some of the young people have already participated in the programme in previous years. Ivaylo Sinapov, for example, explains that contacts with the elderly have taught him to understand himself better and to strive to improve.

"As in my work as an illusionist, the biggest award I get are the smiles of the seniors we help. It's a real pleasure for me. Their happiness gives me a reason to keep going."

And the big goal of the project, Emilia Georgieva strongly believes, is to build deeper and lasting relationships between people that will eventually continue after it ends.

Author: Radostina Chernokova

Editor: Vesela Krusteva

English version: Elizabeth Radkova