The furore that was raised following the broadcast of director Kate Blewett's BBC4 documentary Bulgaria's Abandoned Children still has not died down.

This is good. For the state of Bulgarian social care homes for children is nothing to brag about - and nor should it be hidden any longer. The screening of a shortened version of her film (56' versus 88') and panel discussion on the topic of "Is There a Chance to Again Find the Children of Bulgaria: What Is Being Done, What to Do, and How" that The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate held the evening of November 6 drew the likes of Blewett herself, along with other panel members like Deputy Labour and Social Policy Minister Ivanka Hristova, State Agency for Child Protection Director Shirin Mestan, Social Welfare Agency Director Gergana Dryanska, Assen Petrov from the Education Ministry, Rossitsa Boukova from Bulgarian Mothers Movement, Slavka Kukova from Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and others. The audience was made up of a no less influential crowd, with presence by US ambassador John Beyrle, Laura Parker from Save the Children, former Bulgarian ambassador and former Foreign Affairs minister Ivan Stanchov and more turning out to show support.
Or to share opinions.

In the passionate discussion session that followed the film, reactions of non-culpability shot forth from those representing the Government, countering and being countered by their NGO counterparts and Blewett.

The floor was given first to Blewett, who expressed the wish that each child have a loving family home, to which Hristova concurred, and explained that the Labour and Social Policy Ministry had sent letters to each of the families with a child at the social care home in Mogilino, explaining the process of closing down remote institutes and the overall "de-institutionalisation" of such places, suggesting that the parents become involved with their children's fates. Only three families responded; there are more than 65 children living in the former schoolhouse in Mogilino.

Blewett's response, echoed by the overflowing hall, was that the closing down of Mogilino was not necessarily the best option, because the children would just be sent elsewhere, which does not always equate better care. She would later ask: "If there are better places for these children to go, why weren't they moved before?" To which she added that this should be accompanied by records of where they then end up.
Stating that she would only say what the State Agency for Child Protection had done, and not what is was going to do, Mestan said that a plan had been worked out for the closing of Mogilino, and that it was to be implemented shortly, but then Blewett's film happened and all the uproar precluded any action. "We found there to be great wrongs against humanity in the home," Mestan said. She also said that Mogilino does not represent the condition of children's social care homes in Bulgaria as a whole. "We know the situation in every home very well because we enter into each of them," she said, noting that Mogilino had received European Union funding to train the staff in caring for disabled children, but that it was not taken advantage of.

Countering this, Blewett said that it was only necessary to surf the internet to read about others' experiences with the numerous such homes in Bulgaria to know that Mogilino was not a case a part. She again called for the level of care towards the children to change - that they receive love and some sort of humane upbringing from the staff.

The evening continued liked this, with Boukova recalling that the first cry against Mogilino had come in 1999, when it was listed for shut-down. "Why did it have to come to this (a foreign film) for the situation to be noticed?" she asked. She said that people need to recognise their mistakes and be willing to leave their positions.

Dryanska said that the appalling state of children's lives does not only affect the children in the homes, but also society as a whole. She said that more than 160 daycare centres had been opened in the past two years, for children to get out of the institutes and return to their birth families where possible, and attend the centres during the day.

Which was unrealistic, Blewett said, to imagine that the children of Mogilino could go back home, be looked after by their parents, and then go to a daycare centre. She called re-unification of these children and their parents in itself "unrealistic".

No conclusions were reached, but opinions on both sides were expressed. If nothing else, at least people were starting to dialogue.