The Worlds Day Care Centre is a project of Maria’s World Foundation. Since July 2013 it has enabled 30 young people with intellectual difficulties to acquire work and life skills in order to improve their personal independence and quality of life.

At the Worlds Day Care Centre people who had—up to this point in their life—been rejected as mentally handicapped, learn how to communicate, deal with the demands of daily life and take care of themselves. Here, they feel useful, succeed in significantly improve their skills of orientation in space, time and amongst other people and acquire valuable work skills.

The aim of the Day Care Centre is to provide an inclusive, accepting and stimulating environment that promotes development and offers daily activities for people with intellectual difficulties aiming to improve the quality of their life and build skills and attitudes that enable their social integration.

The centre promotes and supports the social, economic, emotional, educational and cultural development of each client as proof that each individual is capable of developing their full potential and becoming a valuable member of the community.

The Day Care Centre is situated in 8 Riccardo Vaccarini Street, Gotse Delchev, Sofia. It is open to people aged 18 plus years with mild and moderate intellectual difficulties who are willing to acquire new skills, form new friendships and share.

Our team includes professionals who apply their experience in social care obtained in countries, such as the Netherlands, the UK, the United States, etc. We strive to create a stimulating environment with daily activities that are matched to the individual capabilities and interests of each of our clients.

Here, in an amiable environment and with the support of group supervisors, young people with intellectual difficulties acquire a broad range of social and daily skills: communication, housekeeping, personal hygiene, time orientation, personal finances management and many others.

Our Day Care Centre is also a place of learning different work skills. In our professional kitchen under the supervision of a professional chef, they learn how to prepare different meals. In the atelier where scented hand-crafted candles and soap bars are made, they learn persistence and how to combine different colours, forms and aromas. The art atelier is intended for clients who like making hand-made artefacts, giving free reign to their imagination and creativity with the support of an expert in the area.

At the beginning, the young people with intellectual difficulties—our clients—were shy, overly anxious and lacking in even basic skills. During the course of 18 months their social skills improved by leaps and bounds. And, if at the time when the Day Care Centre first opened each new visitor visibly raised their level of anxiety, they now meet and greet guests calmly, with measured curiosity and friendliness. At the beginning, each event at the Day Care Centre provoked fear in our clients. Due to the systematic approach taken today most of them are able to control their emotions, communicate and feel at ease in the presence of other members of the community.

Some of the clients of the Day Care Centre have mastered the daily commute to and from the Day Care Centre and are now able to make the journey completely independently. We continue our work to make sure that more and more of our clients are comfortable using public transport without assistance from family members and friends.
Most clients have improved their personal hygiene and the cleanliness of the premises occupied. We have also observed a marked improvement in the acquisition of work skills. People with intellectual difficulties now find it increasingly easier to arrive at the centre on time, observe the work and rest hours and learn basic work skills, such as communicating with others, performing specific tasks, concentrating, etc.

The acquisition of money handling skills, telling the time, improved speaking skills, and learning to control one’s emotions are but a few of the priority programmes the team of the centre is currently working to develop.
The quality of the service is supplemented by a psychologist, a social worker and a family therapist who, along with group supervisors, help each of our clients to develop their full potential.

Contact us by phone on 02 423 97 40 or 0882 663 665.
We look forward to hearing from you!

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