On September 21, Vitebsk /Olga Bogacheva - BELTA/. Social institutions of the Vitebsk region attracted over Br600 million in sponsorship over January-August this year. This was announced today at a meeting of the Committee for Labour, Employment and Social Protection of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee by Svetlana Popkova, Head of the Department for Rehabilitation and Social Support of Pensioners and Disabled Persons of the committee, as reported by a BELTA correspondent. According to her, to improve the material and technical base and provide social service institutions with equipment, serious attention is paid to attracting sponsorship. To this end, since the beginning of the year, 5 projects aimed at the material and technical equipping of institutions, including day care centres for disabled persons, have been implemented with the international charitable public association "Sofia", amounting to about Br80 million (in 2010 – 8 projects for Br185 million). Foreign gratuitous aid for the reporting period amounted to over Br600 million (last year – more than Br900 million). In addition, territorial centres for social services for the population (TCSOP) work closely with the Belarusian Red Cross Society, Caritas Belarus, and the "Youth Student League" NGO, among other organisations. One of the most important areas of TCSOP activity is working with disabled persons, noted Svetlana Popkova. For this purpose, 27 day care centres for disabled persons have been established in the region. They operate 138 hobby groups and clubs for socio-domestic rehabilitation, computer literacy courses, arts and crafts, and adaptive physical education, attended by about 1.8 thousand people. Seven rehabilitation and labour workshops have also been opened at the centres, attended by 69 disabled persons. In addition, the centres continuously update the database of disabled persons residing in the region, including disabled children. As of September 1, it contained over 245 thousand people, of whom 7 thousand are lonely and living alone disabled persons, and about 3 thousand are young disabled persons. -0-

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