00:01In Bulgaria, an innovative project is helping parents back to work,
00:06boosting good quality child care and offering unemployed people a stable job.
00:30Finding accessible, affordable and good quality child care is a big barrier to mothers with young children who want to
00:37return to work.
00:38The search for solutions is underway and we're here in Sofia to see one example in action.
00:49It's time to drop off the children and head to the office for Kristina Ruzdhanova.
00:54This single mother searched for three months before she found the right person to care for her two-year-old
01:00son, Dimitar,
01:01while her daughter goes to school and she goes to work.
01:04It was extremely difficult for me to find a child-observant person.
01:08First, because of the person who believes the interests and the second,
01:14to be a legal issue of the public health care, how to be an agreement with this person.
01:20Despite those challenges, Kristina was determined to take up a new job as an accountant at the Italian Embassy in
01:27Sofia.
01:28For me, to work and to feel an active mother is an extremely important thing,
01:34because I believe that we give a good example of our children.
01:38While Kristina is at the office, her son receives one-to-one professional care from Galina Ilieva,
01:44who is happy to have this work opportunity.
01:47We left a couple of months with the previous child and, accordingly, I sought a new job and today we
01:54started to get started.
01:59The project that offered Kristina a child-care solution is called Parents and Employment,
02:04and it addresses a very specific need here in Bulgaria,
02:08where only 22% of children under three are in early childhood education and care,
02:13compared to an EU average of 40%.
02:15The project meets the shortfall in nursery places by offering parents up to eight hours a day of free childcare.
02:23It's financed from a €33.5 million five-year budget,
02:27which includes €28 million from the European Social Fund Plus.
02:33One of the most innovative aspects of the project is it not only offers mothers who want to work a
02:38free childcare option,
02:40but also offers job seekers a chance to be hired.
02:43There's a steady flow of candidates too, both unemployed people and parents looking for childcare.
02:50The Employment Office vets every case carefully, and then the matching process begins.
02:56The process is proving successful over a few months.
02:57Even after the parents encourage the child-care,
03:01they can start to document the agreement and the planning process,
03:07but in the same way, they find a return to the potential child-care.
03:12We actually find, from one side, the encouragement of the parents,
03:15and from the other side, the agreement of the people who will be able to look at the children.
03:22The process is proving successful.
03:25Over 3400 eligible families have signed childcare contracts since the current project began in 2023,
03:31and 3,500 child-carers have been employed.
03:37Offering accessible, affordable and high-quality childcare is also a means to reduce inequality.
03:44Brussels-based childcare expert Christian Morabito says even the youngest children benefit.
03:50Evidence shows that gaps in skills appear early, before the child enters to primary education.
03:59So providing these services, childcare services, especially to poor children,
04:03is essential for them to reduce this gap.
04:05But also for parents, through allowing them, accessing the labour market, especially women,
04:11to reduce gap in income.
04:14Back in Sofia and Galina is playing with Dimitar,
04:17who spends most of his summer days outside in the park.
04:32Then, at the end of the day, mum Kristina receives a warm welcome home from work.
04:37This is a wonderful moment, for which I am waiting for every day.
04:43Expanding childhood education and care is considered an economic, social and gender equality priority in Europe.
04:49It's calculated that raising the employment rate of women could boost EU GDP by up to 1.7%.
04:56In the end.
04:57In the end.
