ADRA Bulgaria opens new medical-social center
A new 390 square meters big medical-social center in the town of Pazardzhik, Bulgaria was opened in June 2022. Built in only one year its opening marks 30 years of ADRA Bulgaria.
The Center for Medical and Social Services has 10 rooms, a parking lot, and a yard. It provides dental services and has Doppler, ultrasound, ECG, bone density machine, and screening devices, among others, available for use. It was built extremely quickly.
“Within one year, we went from a barren field to the current beautiful center – despite the pandemic, the war, the inflation… The main purpose of the project: [For] people from Pazardzhik to rediscover their health [and} to find some diseases early enough in order to prevent more serious consequences for their health,” explains Marian Dimitrov, ADRA Bulgaria’s director.
The aim of the center is to ensure the prevention of socially significant diseases, provide free medical check-ups and dental treatments; implement psycho-therapeutic trainings, seminars, and conferences; and be a place for the development of social entrepreneurship, as well as other social activities.
In the inauguration speech Thomas Petracek, head of Programs and Emergency Response for ADRA Europe, pointed out: “We are here because we see the needs of the people and we want to meet those needs. My wish is that this center should serve in the future – as we have in our motto – to share compassion, justice, and love.”
Moreover, the center has room for organizing social entrepreneurship with representatives of local vulnerable groups. Canning of bee-honey and lavender essential oils is also part of their social program.
This is neither the first project on which ADRA and the SDA Church have worked side-by-side nor will it be the last project. Milen Georgiev, president of the SDA Church in Bulgaria: “Just [like] the Church has found a way to support society through ADRA, so ADRA, in the face of the Church, finds people who want to get involved in its projects.”
The medical-social center in the town of Pazardzhik is the second of this kind in the country. The first one was established 20 years ago in the Roma community in Kyustendil. 20 houses for the most desperate families were built there.
Read more here.
