The sad story of the children with mental disabilities from the Sveta Petka home in Mogilino village, near the town of Rousse, became known to the public in September 2007 after BBC4 showed Kate Blewett's documentary Bulgaria's Abandoned Children. The heartbreaking images of the children shown by Blewett shook both Bulgarians and foreigners, although some questioned Blewett's objectivity. The film led to the Agency for Social Assistance within the Ministry for Labour and Social Policy, UNICEF and 16 NGOs adopting an action plan in October 2007 to close down the home in Mogilino. A charity campaign was launched and 1.6 million leva was raised.
The Sofia Echo's Petar Kostadinov and Svetlana Guineva spoke to the Agency for Social Assistance and UNICEF, the two organisations deeply involved in closing down the home in Mogilino.

When the BBC4 documentary was shown last September, public discontent was aimed at the Agency for Social Assistance (ASA) and the Ministry for Labour and Social Policy.

As the state's representative in the story, the ASA was exposed to a lot of pressure and had to meet the demands of both the media and the society who were caught by surprise that such a home even existed.

As someone who is directly involved in the Mogilino issue, Silviya Tsanova, ASA deputy executive director has the answers to most of the questions raised against the ASA but lacks the answer to the main question: why these children were left unattended by their parents for years given the fact that few of them are actually orphans.

"It is only the parents who can give this answer. For me, one of the reasons is that these children have serious problems and their parents have decided that they can not take care of them. But let parents give their answers," Tsanova said.

What she is more than capable of answering is what they have done with the 69 children Blewett filmed in September last year.

Since then, the ASA has taken 17 children and four youths (aged over 18) out of the home. Twelve of the children have been sent to the Nadezhda home for children deprived of parental care in Rousse.

Two children have been sent to the home for children deprived of parental care at Brestovitsa village and the ASA has transferred three children to homes for children with mental disabilities in Sofia, Stara Zagora and Razgrad municipalities.

Three of the youths have been sent to a sheltered home while Diana, who was one of the main characters in Blewett's film, has requested to go to a centre for professional development in Sofia.

The film presented Diana as constantly saying that her mother would come and claim her. "Her family has no means to take care of her and after the systematic work with one of the appointed psychologists, Diana seemed to be feeling much better, and appears to have accepted the fact that her mother is not coming for her," Diana Vakarelska, programme director of social policy and planning at UNICEF-Bulgaria, said.

The decision
to move the children to other institutions was based on a thorough assessment of their physical and mental conditions, performed by a team of medics and social workers. "Such a check has never been done in the home. Doing it is part of the overall reform undertaken by the ASA and the state," Tsanova said.

Under the intensive care of UNICEF, a funded team including a child psychiatrist, psychologist, certified nurses, rehabilitation therapists and kinesitherapists, many of the kids have been brought back to life. "It is also important to note that some of the children have acquired important cognitive skills such as recognising letters of the alphabet and numbers, skills unknown to them because no one had worked with them before. At the moment, one of the girls is coming to Sofia and she will attend a school for children with impaired sight," Vakarelska said.

The lack of such an assessment answers some of the questions as to why the children are in their current state. "Such institutions are a legacy of communism. The staff there simply never believed that they could do something to help these children," Tsanova said. According Vakarelska, when UNICEF first went to the Mogilino home last November, the situation was grave. Most of the children were bed-ridden and malnourished. Several months later, many of them are able to walk and have begun to communicate. "It was great to notice that the children have gained some considerable amount of weight, but it was really a delight to see that there was a different type of attitude, different approach in treating them," Vakarelska said.

The sad truth
according to Tsanova was that the staff at the home never believed that making a child move or proper nutrition was important. "The fact is that there are not many people willing to work in such small villages. This is another reason why we are moving the children to big cities. Mogilino in itself is a nice village, but it is not a place where you can keep anyone behind closed doors." Tsanova said.

The strategy's main goal is to take the children out of the small village and bring them to larger towns where they can benefit from all the advantages of a modern society such as getting the help they need on time and, most of all, being closer to their families.

From that point will begin the children's re-integration into society through regular visits to day-care centres and attending schools for children with special needs, instead of being confined to one place.

"It applies to all children currently placed in institutions, not just the ones in Mogilino." Tsanova said.

Every effort should be made to re-integrate them into society, to encourage foster care and adoption, Vakarelska noted as well. On the other hand, the concept of foster care is barely developed in Bulgaria. "Great difficulties are present even when it comes to healthy children, because our society is not ready for this step," Vakarelska said.

Based on the complex assessment, some of the children who are currently staying in Mogilino will be sent to sheltered homes around Bulgaria. For this purpose, the ASA together with UNICEF have already signed several agreements with municipalities like Rousse and Varna for building such shelters with the money raised by the charity campaign. Two more are planned for Sofia.

These centres will be an entirely new service, which is called the family-type environment centre, where children with disabilities will find their permanent home.

According to Tsanova, Mogilino could be closed down by the end of the year. For the children who are still in Mogilino, the ASA has supplied a team of specialists that provides them with the needed care, Tsanova said.

"It is a long process. In fact, our partners from the EU advise us that we don't shut down the home at once because after so many years spent there children need to become used to the news that they will change their environment. For me this is the right way to close down an institution, it might be slow, but it is the right one".

The ASA has also tried to re-establish the link between some of the children and their biological parents.

"Five of the children, for example, have been left unheard by their parents for years and the process of re-integration will be extremely long. The good news is that parents finally met their children and found out what their health condition was. Even if they don't take them back, the re-established contact will help children a lot on an emotional level."

Emotions
 are what Tsanova and the ASA got from the public as well. When it was announced that some of the children from Mogilino would be moved to Sredna Koula (a Rousse neighbourhood), locals went out to protest. TV cameras showed them saying they did not want "crazy children playing with their own children". A similar reaction came from Varna. 

"It is not easy to comment on the society. Maybe the society was touched by a TV show (Blewett's documentary), but it was not moved by the real situation of the children. My feeling is that sometimes we work despite the society. To change this we need to inform the society on a regular basis. This is the right way for me, because when people are well informed they will not be afraid because these reactions are based on fear and it is easy to blame the people for their reaction," Tsanova said. According to Vakarelska, one has to keep in mind that even if the village's mayor had the best possible intentions, he would not have had the financial resources to bring such specialists to the home.

Money or not, Tsanova recalled a statement made by one of the Sredna Koula residents. "A mother said on TV that she did not know how to explain to her child what the children in Mogilino were. Then another parent, who takes care of a child with cerebral paralysis, called me and asked how she could explain to her child what that mother was."

The Blewett film
for Tsanova was not a sensation. "This film was not the only time when such institutions have been shown in their worst condition. Our policy did not change because of the film because we have closed down 21 institutions since 2001 and we are currently working on closing down six others besides Mogilino based on the strategy we are using there." In 2001, there were 12 609 children placed in institutions and today their number has gone down to 8019, with 2600 being adopted.

For Tsanova, Mogilino is not Bulgaria, but simply part of the picture. What the film changed, according to her, was society's perception on the issue and its reaction.

"It might have helped for the publicity of the issue but it was the reason why those employed in the field lost their motivation. All those negative comments provoked by the film led to this"

According to Vakarelska, however, the controversy surrounding the home in Mogilino village brought about many positive changes. "Without doubt, the public opinion began to slowly shift; there is an open dialogue about this type of problematic matter. People need to realise that the children with disabilities are part of our society, they also have rights and are not some kind of monsters," she said.