The Bulgarian Fatherhood Foundation has been created to give its contribution for meeting the need of every human being for father. To us, the need for father is a concept including universal needs, associated with the role of the father in a family or to which meeting the role of the father in a family is very important.
Further to the physical needs of food and shelter the need for father includes the needs of every child for protection, support, encouragement, emotional security, acknowledgment, understanding, sharing, hearing, belief in one’s own value and strength etc. The recognition of the importance of the meeting of these needs for the growth of Bulgarian children as happy and harmonic individuals is the main objective оf the foundation. These needs may remain unsatisfied not only when in a family the father is absent due to death, divorce and other objective reasons but, also, when the father is predominantly engaged outside the family and even when he is physically but not emotionally present in the lives of his children.
Meeting the needs for support, encouragement, and belief in one’s own value and strength is of extreme importance in the teen age. Through its projects and initiatives the Bulgarian Fatherhood Foundation shall support fatherless youngsters so they are given the chance to find out their calling and make their dreams come true. Also, it will support youngsters and their fathers to find mutual understanding and create healthy relationships.
The recent research has shown that there is still a lot of work to be done to encourage the involvement of fathers in parenting support programs. If current low participation levels in Bulgaria and, generally, in Europe, are not improved, parenting support risks reinforcing a family model in which the mother is recognized as the ‘certified’ child-rearing expert in the home. The Bulgarian Fatherhood Foundation will address that issue by making fathers aware about their important role in the child’s upbringing and offer opportunities for them to increase their parenting skills and potential.
At the same time we realize that the current models of positive parenting significantly differ from the traditional models in the past and especially the role of the father in the modern family is nowadays seriously reconsidered. This fact inevitably requires from fathers to revise the parenting models from their own childhood and such process might be very painful. A lot of men bear the so called father’s wounds from the relationships with their own fathers and would normally avoid opening such issues. The mission of the Bulgarian Fatherhood Foundation is to encourage and support men and fathers to pass through this process and ultimately become better men, better husbands and better fathers.
In June 2016, the Bulgarian Fatherhood Foundation reached an agreement with the director of the American documentary ABSENT, dedicated exactly on the importance of the father, the father’s wound and its consequences as well as the possibilities for its healing, that will allow us to screen ABSENT throughout Bulgaria over the next three years.
In its activities the Bulgarian Fatherhood Foundation uses also tools such as music, art therapy and improvisational theatre.
The Bulgarian Fatherhood Foundation may be contacted as per the following contact information:
- Address: Sofia 1000, Bulgaria
- 64 Patriarch Evtimii blvd., fl.2, office 5
- Tel: +359 2 899356902
- Fax: +359 2 4219534
- Dr. Boris E. Kolev – President