About One Heart Children's Foundation
One Heart Children's Foundation, formerly One Heart Bulgaria, is a non-profit humanitarian organization committed to dramatically improving the lives of countless abandoned children, orphans, and vulnerable girls and women in Eastern Europe. Since its inception in 2003, our foundation has sustained an infrastructure that caters to the immediate and critical needs of neglected children, while also implementing proactive programs designed to ensure their long-term social, emotional, mental, and physical well-being.
Our holistic approach encompasses various initiatives for preventing child abandonment and fostering a supportive environment for those at risk. Through our abandonment prevention programs, we offer perinatal support to underprivileged pregnant girls and women, with the additional goal of reducing the incidence of birth defects. Furthermore, our efforts extend to supporting reintegration and foster care initiatives within the community, facilitating the reunification of families or the creation of new ones.
At the heart of our mission lies a commitment to three key pillars: Abandonment Prevention, Institutional Care, and Deinstitutionalization. By addressing these core areas, we strive to rectify the inherent deficiencies prevalent in Eastern European orphanage systems.
Our foundation also prioritizes comprehensive enrichment programs tailored to meet the diverse needs of abandoned and institutionalized children. From providing essential emotional, social, physical, and educational support to offering specialized training for caregivers, social workers, and foster parents, we ensure that every child receives the care and attention they deserve.
One Heart Children's Foundation's overarching goal is to prevent institutionalization or deinstitutionalize children through reintegration with birth families or the transition into foster care. These efforts are aligned with the European Union's vision for deinstitutionalization. This endeavor strives for a significant improvement to the well-being of vulnerable children, thereby strengthening families, communities, and countries across the region.
Why Us?
Experience
Connections
Connections
We leverage over 20 years of international experience with creating and implementing programs that change the lives of institutionalized and vulnerable children, girls, and women.
Connections
Connections
Connections
Utilizing our extensive government, professional, and personal connections, we possess the expertise to influence policies, practices, and systems, to create systemic change.
Knowledge
Connections
Trust & Credibility
We are from these countries and/or have lived here, and therefore understand the culture and needs of the vulnerable populations we work with.
Trust & Credibility
Solution and Prevention Oriented
Trust & Credibility
We have numerous trusted partnerships with service providers, social services, and organizations who work with us.
Solution and Prevention Oriented
Solution and Prevention Oriented
Solution and Prevention Oriented
We aim to eradicate child abandonment and institutionalization through preventive measures and comprehensive intervention strategies that address every stage of a child's development (Prenatal, Neonatal, Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence and Young Adulthood), with a particular emphasis on the beginning of life. That is the best place to change the story.
Compatibility
Solution and Prevention Oriented
Solution and Prevention Oriented
Our programs are compatible with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the Europe and Central Asia Child Rights Monitoring Framework, and the Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development Framework to ensure greater effectiveness.
We Offer Children Hope for a Happy Future
Vision
Our vision is to eradicate child abandonment and institutionalization across Eastern Europe, resulting in all children living a healthier and more fulfilling life in a supportive family environment.
Mission
One Heart Children's Foundation is dedicated to significantly improving the lives of abandoned children and underprivileged girls and women in Eastern Europe through comprehensive programs addressing physical, mental, emotional, moral, and educational needs.
We aim to facilitate deinstitutionalization by supporting reintegration, foster care, and abandonment prevention initiatives, focusing on three core pillars—Abandonment Prevention, Institutional Care, and Deinstitutionalization—to address deficiencies in orphanage systems and family systems to create lasting change.
Our ultimate goal is to end child neglect and transition children out of institutional care into nurturing family environments.
Areas of Emphasis - Our Three Pillars
We focus our efforts on the entire life cycle of a child (prenatal, neonatal, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and young-adulthood) in the following three areas that focus on "AID":
- Abandonment Prevention: keep families together by providing maternal and perinatal support, education, and resources for at-risk girls, underprivileged women, and their children
- Institutional Support: provide comprehensive assistance encompassing both essential support services and programs for personal development and well-being
- Deinstitutionalization/Reintegration: reunite families or create new families through foster care
Strategy
Our Strategy involves leveraging our 20+ years of international experience to achieve our goals by:
- Utilizing our strong, trusted and extensive connections with local governments, service providers, child protection services, and organizations to influence policies and change on behalf of abandoned children with or without disabilities; girls who are at risk for being sex-trafficked, and impoverished women.
- Extending humanitarian support, along the full child life cycle, by replicating our programs and services in additional countries in the European Union.
- Combining field experience with data to implement strategies to mitigate root causes of children being born with disabilities, infant mortality, and child abandonment.
Goals
Thousands of children in Eastern Europe endure the harsh realities of overcrowded and underfunded orphanages, deprived of essentials such as nutritious food, medical care, education, and love, leaving them without hope for their future. One Heart Children's Foundation is committed to remedying these pressing needs while establishing a sustainable framework for the enduring welfare of these children. Our mission is to cultivate the social, emotional, moral and physical well-being of the children we serve, fostering an environment where they can thrive and realize their full potential. Through our initiatives, we aim to create a generation of Eastern European children and young adults capable of leading healthy, meaningful lives and making positive contributions to society. Through these comprehensive efforts, One Heart Children's Foundation strives to make a lasting impact, empowering Eastern European children to build brighter futures for themselves and their communities. To achieve our overarching goals, we pursue objectives in the following essential areas:
Immediate Needs and Essential Resources
- Providing essential resources such as nutritious food, bedding, medical support, and hygiene articles to combat malnutrition and disease among vulnerable children.
- Ensuring access to specialized medical care and rehabilitation services for children with disabilities, as well as perinatal care for sex trafficked pregnant girls and underprivileged women.
- Supporting facility improvements and special projects to improve living conditions for children in orphanages.
Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Development
- Providing holistic programs alongside consistent mentorship and guidance from trained adults for emotional, social, moral, and intellectual development in a safe and supportive environment.
- Offering educational programs, vocational training, and personal development opportunities to prepare children for life beyond orphanages.
- Partnering with local organizations, child protective services, and social services to improve services for families with children with disabilities.
- Supporting foster care programs by helping with system development, training, and advocating foster parenting.
Preventative and Long-Term Solutions
- Supporting and/or partnering with medical services and social services that work to ensure that parents of children with disabilities are able to keep their children.
- Working with underprivileged pregnant girls and women who are at risk for abandoning their children.
- Reducing the occurrence of infant abandonment (due to birth defects) through education, training, and perinatal care.
Final Achievements
- Empower abandoned children with equal opportunities to create a future of happiness and success.
- Ensure equal access to medical care and rehabilitative services for abandoned children with disabilities.
- Assist in child deinstitutionalize efforts throughout Eastern Europe and reintegrate them into families and society as healthy, well-adjusted citizens
- Help countries in Eastern Europe move from an orphanage system to a foster care system, thereby ending the orphan crisis in Eastern Europe.
- Influencing change in subcultures throughout Eastern Europe to eliminate the practice of child marriage.
- Eradicate child abandonment in Eastern Europe.
...that is how we change their story.
To support our programs and initiatives on behalf of the children, girls, and women we serve, please consider donating.