Sat, Jul 04 2009
The Unicef representative for Bulgaria, Octavian Bivol, said on July 16 2008 that he hoped that a new home for the children from the Mogilino social care home would be built by the beginning of 2009.
The plight of the mentally challenged children at the Sveta Petka home in the village of Mogilino near Bulgaria's Danubian city of Rousse was exposed in September 2007 in a BBC documentary by Kate Blewett, entitled Bulgaria's Abandoned Children.
Bulgarian news agency BTA reported that Bivol said that a memorandum on a joint project by Unicef Bulgaria, Varna municipality and the Social Assistance Agency had been signed.
The agreement, signed on June 14 2008, provides for a grant contract worth 500 000 leva.
The funds will be used for the construction of the home, for equipping and furnishing it and for the training of the staff.
Reporting on June 14, BTA quoted Bivol as saying that the signing of the contract was the first real step towards creating a model for closure of Bulgarian state institutions for raising abandoned children with disabilities and their accommodation in small family-type centres.
The Blewett documentary led to the Agency for Social Assistance, 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.
Of the 69 children in the home at the time Blewett's film was made, 17 children and four youths (aged over 18) have been removed from the home by the Agency for Social Assistance.
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 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.
On July 14 2008, UK newspaper the Daily Mail and other British newspapers reported that celebrity couple Jordan and 1990s pop star Peter Andre looked set to follow the lead of a growing number of stars by adopting from the Third World (differing reports said that the couple were looking to adopt a child from Eastern Europe).
"The glamour girl is currently eager to add a disabled foreign child to her family," the Daily Mail said.
Jordan was reported to have been spurred into action after being reduced to tears by watching Blewett's documentary.
Social Minister Emilia Maslarova presents her own film about the Mogilino home amid claims of improvement
Leading fundraiser slams Bulgaria for the "inhumanity" of its children's homes and calls for reappraisal by government and families
The first of five Little Houses offering shelter to eight children from the Mogilino social care home is being built.
Ataka and Order Law and Justice parties stage symbolic blockades at Bulgaria’s borders with Turkey on eve of July 5 2009 parliamentary election, while reports record influx of would-be voters and, it is claimed, flights are being chartered from Turkey.
In a blow against a problem that has been plaguing Bulgaria’s elections, State Agency for National Security and Interior Ministry say several people in a ‘major criminal organisation’ have been arrested for vote-buying, on the eve of the July 5 vote.
Barometer Info survey on July 3 2009, just ahead of the eve of Bulgaria’s national parliamentary elections, gives GERB 27.05 per cent and Sergei Stanishev’s Coalition for Bulgaria 19.09 per cent.
The exact number of people sacked from duty out of the 600 who refused to go to work on Monday is undisclosed, although reports claim that as of June 3 at least four people were told they were surplus to requirements.
Open your mind and face the unknown: the 2009 general elections in Bulgaria.
i hope they help the adults too they had nothing either, and that's where these kids were heading next
nz
we rfecently received doorstep requests for clothes, towels,shoes etc from an unnamed source who left labels with only a mobile contact number. Are you aware of a Mogilito children's fundraising organisation in Dublin?
The world is presently experiencing an economic downturn, I hope this does not hamper the efforts of Bulgaria and the wider global community in supporting the children of Mogilino.