The ZOV UK Minibus

A team of ZOV UK volunteers drove out to Bulgaria in summer 2006 in a minibus, kindly donated to the project by Oxford University Student Union and serviced free of charge by the M4 Van Centre in Swindon. We filled the bus with twenty bags of emergency supplies for a children's home in Medven (Central Bulgaria), and 70 new sets of blankets for a boarding school in Bogdanovo. The minibus travelled the entire 3000km across Europe without difficulty, and will be used in the future to aid orphanages in the Veliko Tǔrnovo region, which are often in remote locations, and hampered in what they can do for the children by a lack of affordable transport.

The minibus is currently going through the process of gaining a Bulgarian registration. Unfortunately, due to a Hepatitis A outbreak, the ZOV team were unable to go into the Medven home, but the supplies were delivered and gratefully received. We are still in contact with the director of the institution at Medven and hope to be able to support the home in other ways in the future. The school in Bogdanovo is now the subject of a further ZOV UK project, to supply more sets of blankets and pillows to keep the children warm throughout the cold winter months.

The article entitled "The Plight of Bulgaria's Lost Children", which was published in The Sunday Times in April, exposed the appalling living conditions of children in the children's home in Medven, lacking such essential items as clothing and nappies.