Bulgaria

Organisation

In Bulgaria, the La Strada programme has been implemented by the 'Animus Association' Foundation (AAF) since 1998. Animus advocates the development of a Centre for Rehabilitation, Counselling and Psychotherapy and lobbies for changing the legislation and social and healthcare system with respect to the needs of women victims and survivors of violence. The La Strada activities are implemented by a core team consisting of Ms Nadia Kozhouharova, the national coordinator (who is also coordinator of the Information and Lobby Campaign), two campaign managers (Prevention and Social Assistance), a legal advisor and a lobbyist. In the future, La Strada Bulgaria intends to focus more on minors in all its campaigns. One of the La Strada achievements in this field is the project "Public-Private Cooperation in the Prevention of Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Minors in the Travel and Tourism Industry".

Information & Lobby

La Strada Bulgaria has successfully lobbied for the first "National Programme for the Prevention of and Counteraction to Trafficking in Persons and Victim Protection" that was developed in 2005 and adopted in 2006. Currently, La Strada is supporting the effective cooperation between GOs and NGOs in the implementation of the National Programme.

Prevention & Education

Recently, La Strada Bulgaria has developed a Prevention Unit within the organisation in order to transfer the La Strada human rights based approach to prevention to partner organisations in the country. La Strada has also included minors at risk and parents of minors as new target groups in prevention activities and has started to develop a particular approach in working with them. As part of the prevention campaign, the project "Comprehensive Approach for Prevention of Trafficking in Human Beings among Adolescents and Young People" aims to spread the knowledge of trafficking of human beings among the largest number of adolescents.

Social Assistance

Also in the La Strada Bulgaria Social Assistance campaign, minors survivors of trafficking are included as a new target group. A new model of work that takes into account their specific age-related needs and trauma experience is being developed. An ongoing project of La Strada Bulgaria is to further develop the model of work of Animus/La Strada Bulgaria in support of survivors of trafficking.