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.