Bulgaria. Do you know where that is? I didn't either. I knew it was in Europe...somewhere, but wasn't entirely sure where it was.
THIS IS BULGARIA...
I recently saw a documentary, Bulgaria's Abandoned Children (Kate Blewett, BBC, 2007) about the ghastly horrific conditions in children's care homes and institutions. Children with severe and profound disabilities as well as children whose only disability is they are blind or deaf, living as abandoned children in the care of government institutions. They receive poor nutrition, poorer health care and the staff never interact socially or show any type of emotion to these incredibly sweet children.
Hard to believe places like that exist? Watch the video for yourself!
While Mogilino is now closed, there are over 140 more children's institutions in Bulgaria and other countries surrounding it where children are placed from early toddler years and then are moved into adult institutions where they spend many long and lonely years. These conditions have got to stop!
Kate Blewett, the journalist and producer behind this documentary did a follow-up visit in 2009 and conditions were still quite bleak. However, she has worked to set up a trust fund for these children of Mogilino and other institutions around Bulgaria.
The Bulgarian Abandoned Children's Trust is based out of Britain, gathering volunteer groups from the London area to volunteer for two week stints in Bulgaria and love and serve these most precious children.
My only concern is how can we, in the US, get involved?
I don't know of any direct initiatives planted here in the United States that gather volunteer groups. I've searched for mission trips and school summer teaching spots but nobody wants to touch this area.
I DO! I want to go there. Send me! I'll take it! Let me help set up special education programs in Bulgaria.
Kids in these institutions are considered ineducable so no education programs are set up to engage them in any way. They sit and rock back and forth or sit for extended periods on plastic potty chairs.
They don't deserve to be treated this way. They deserve LOVE and RESPECT! And HOPE!
One day I hope I can get the chance to go to Bulgaria and see these conditions for myself. Maybe then I can help bring awareness of the situations like this that are all too common around the world in the treatment of our most vulnerable children.
I actually emailed Kate Blewett about her documentary and here's what she sent back to me:
Hi Maddie,
I think the best way for you to have a fuller picture of how it all happened and what has happened is if I point you to the website of the charity I founded after the screening of my documentary.
Firstly though, thank you for watching my film. I know it is distressing to watch....
There are lots of ways you can help Bulgaria's abandoned children. I have formed a Trust with a team of viewers who also wanted to help. Our website is www.tbact.org.
This is full of information and about the projects we are doing in Bulgaria and how you can support them. Raising awareness and fundraising are the key activities we ask of our supporters - you would be helping us to campaign for social change as well as fund projects that change childrens lives for the better. Please specifically look at our BABA project, where we link grandmothers to the abandoned children to give them one on one help. We have a number of projects that need support.
There is also information on the website that looks at voluntary work in the institutes in Bulgaria, which might be of interest to you.
Please read this article to see the astounding changes that have taken place as a direct result of the screening of my documentary.
But alas, there is still much to do.
Please see this report...... http://bghelsinki.org/index.
We at TBACT have a programme of volunteers at an institute called Pleven, where we run a ''Baba'' programme, where we give a child a ''Granny'' (''Baba'') - and the Granny gives one on one love to that child. You can read about this on our website. It costs £1,000 per year to give a child a Baba, to train and pay for the Baba, to monitor the baba and the progress of the child, to subsidise the child's feeding programme and for the child to have the critical one on one care to grow with human contact and love .....
I am trying to set up a National Baba Programme across Bulgaria, where the government takes responsibility and gives every disabled child in an institute a Baba each, funded by the very State that has let them down...... but this will take time!
Thank you for emailing me and thank you for what you said. I am so glad my film had such an impact on you.
You take good care and anything that you can do would be wonderful.
Watch this, to remind you......
With heartfelt thanks and kind regards Kate
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I truly hope you will help me spread awareness of these institutions and their treatment of children with special needs and other disabilities. Love is a verb. Let's Go Global!
Love,
Maddie
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