The opening of the first Art Gallery with works of art made by completely blind and partially sighted artists from all over Bulgaria will be held on May 30, 2019 in Plovdiv, in the Archaeological underpass (the so-called underpass at the Monday market), The initiative is part of a project of the National Rehabilitation Center for the Blind, Plovdiv and it is funded by the European Social Fund through the Human Resources Development Operational Program, “Equal Chances” Procedure. The project focuses on innovative and holistic services dedicated to the physical, professional, social and cultural integration of people with visual disabilities and raising awareness about their talents and skills in society.
Variety of modern paintings will be exhibited in the Gallery, as well as artistic ceramics and pottery products - panels, mosaics, castings, human figures, household objects.
There will be oil paintings by various artists, most of them learned their artistic skills by themselves. Also, there will be paintings made with the ancient painting techniques of hot wax (Encaustics).
The art ceramics and pottery products are also made by visually impaired people in the pottery workshop at the NRCB, where the blind and partially sighted artists are trained to make clay and ceramic products.
From June 2019, the Art Gallery will also host a unique "Coffee in the Dark" event, during which each visitor will have the opportunity to be served coffee in complete darkness. The idea of this activity is to make the visitors familiar with the world of the blind and the challenges of a life without sight.
The press conference will take place on May 30, 2019 at 11:00 in the Trakart Cultural Center. The official opening of the Art Gallery will be at 18:30 on the same day.
On May 16, 2019, the National Rehabilitation Center for the Blind held the first of its kind movie projection, adapted for visually impaired people. The initiative was carried out within the framework of the project "Expanding the Center for Mutual Assistance, Integration and Support” of the National Rehabilitation Center for the Blind - Plovdiv". The project is funded by the European Social Fund under the Operational Programme for Human Resources Development, “Equal Chances” procedure.
The movie event was attended by a guest-presentator from CSRI "Svetlina", Sofia, who interpreted the movie classic "Scent of a Woman" from 1992 starring Al Pacino. The actor is an Oscar winner for playing the part of a blind army colonel. Nearly 30 visually impaired people were given the opportunity to fully experience the movie, immersing in its fabule and atmosphere, and understanding it on a level that was not achievable for them so far. The expert from CSRI "Svetlina" trained the experts from the NRCB. In the future they will also perform similar adaptations of popular movies for the visually impaired trainees in the Center.
Three month Report on the Financial Performance of the NRCB-Plovdiv and three month report on the activities performed for the period 01.10.2018-31.12.2018
On 3 December 2018, The International Day of people with disabilities – NRCB together with its partners from EVN Bulgaria conducted a training under the “Establishing a resource center for supporting the integrated education of visually impaired students” Project, funded by EVN under the EVN for Bulgaria Programme.
The training was held as a seminar, conducted by two lecturers, followed by demonstrating the scanning options of the reading device, bought under the project. The seminar was greatly appreciated by the participants – visually impaired high school and university students and their families, professionals, working with visually impaired people. The NRCB experts demonstrated the device, its abilities to scan, save and reproduce text in different formats – text and audio files, suitable for follow-up listening, recording, editing.
On 27.11.2018 the National Rehabilitation for the Blind Center together with its partners from “National network heart for heart” Foundation conducted a free preventional measurement of blood sugar and blood pressure for visually impaired people with diabetes or at risk of diabetes. The experts from the partners’ organizations besides measuring and registering the results, provided an analysis in terms of the history of the disease an previous screenings, medicines, lifestyle and risk factors for diabetes – overweight, lack of physical activity, high blood pressure.
The examined people got valuable advice on how to improve their lives and take care of their health condition. No newly found cases of high blood pressure and/or blood sugar were registered, which comes to show that there is a good connection and traceability of the health condition by the individuals and their general physicians. On the other hand it became clear that 99% of the screened people have high blood pressure, which is a sign that they and the whole society should take measures to hold a more healthy lifestyle.
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