I neither saw nor heard a child

Mary Crane is an experienced full-time teacher of children with complex learning difficulties at Greenfield School in Tyne And Wear, England. Some of these children are blind or visually impaired and have additional physical, sensory and communication difficulties. When she watched Kate Blewett’s BBC4 documentary Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children on September 13 2007, she was appalled by the conditions and treatment of disabled children in the social care home at Mogilino, a village near Rousse.

She decided to take action.
Using her experience and knowledge gained from training courses on developing interaction and communication skills, feeding and nutrition, positioning for good health, independent mobility and choice-making skills, and with assistance from the Bulgaria Helsinki Committee, Sofia Echo Media and British Airways, Mary led a team of three other specialists to Bulgaria over autumn term holiday from their school in England, arriving in Sofia on October 21.
The original goal was to put together a training package of helpful techniques to deliver to interested teachers, caregivers and volunteers to help some children begin to engage with the world.
That was the original goal. When The Sofia Echo telephoned Mary at the Danube Plaza Hotel in Rousse in the evening of October 24, it became clear that what had been hoped for had been dashed to pieces.

You found out about the situation at the children’s home in Mogilino through the BBC documentary, correct?
I watched the documentary on September 13. I’m a teacher in a special school, and thought that I might be able to help some of the staff by training them with PowerPoint presentations, video and staff training activities. I had hoped to work with staff in the morning, and staff and children together in the afternoons.

And they knew that you were coming.
This is where it gets complex. I don’t know. I had arranged it through Slavka (Kukova, the mental health policy advisor at the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee). I told her I’d need interpreters, a training room, and obviously permission.

What led you to this decision?
I was shocked when I saw the programme, and the physical condition of the children. They seemed very under-stimulated, and I just wondered if there was something that we could do to help people to know what to do with them, because it is very hard to know what to do in working with children like that.

What led you exactly to Bulgaria?
The fact that the children themselves looked so unhappy, compared to how our children are in our school, and I know that they have similar physical conditions, like cerebral palsey, sensory impairment.
Our children are given a lot of physiotherapy, and do exercises, and this stops them from getting into such a terrible physical state. We have specialists training them in feeding themselves.
Some of the children’s physical state in Mogilino was really bad. Also, we (in England) work with the children in a different way. We actually teach them, they’re not left alone all day, so that every child can reach his potential.
We aim for our children to take a full and active position in their society, and they have the same rights as any other child.

What was your first impression of the orphanage?
We went to Mogilino along with Slavka and we had to go in, first of all, to negotiate with the director exactly what we’d be doing. We planned to be there for five days. All we were hoping to do was give the staff some ideas and techniques to start off a programme. We’ve been raising money at home with the idea to bring staff over (from Bulgaria) to stay in our community and see how we work.

How did they accept this?
They accepted the training, but we haven’t seen any children. We’ve been there for three days. We started off in the institution, in the building, and we thought we’d get to work with the children in the afternoon, and then we were told to leave, and that there was a room prepared for us in a building (community centre), elsewhere in the village.

What have you been doing then in the community centre?
There must have been 12 staff we’ve been working with. We set up the PowerPoint in the tiny room, it wasn’t suitable at all. We’ve done physiotherapy exercises with the staff, but not with the children.

What has been the staff’s take on this?
I think they were very embarrassed, defensive, but the ice has been broken. We’re fond of each other now... They staff are, I think, good people. The people I’ve worked with have been lovely.

What do you think was the reason for the change in plans?
I don’t know. The sun has been shining for three days, and the children don’t go out and play. We haven’t heard anybody, we haven’t heard a thing.

There are children there, right?
Some of our staff did see one boy come out when we were doing the initial training, and he was talking and going through some of our equipment; he seemed excited. They said that his relationship was quite jokey with the Bulgarian staff.
And then, we were asked to leave, and a number of (Bulgarian) staff had been told to stand against each of the bedroom doors. So we had to leave, take all of our cases of equipment to the community centre. That was Monday. We’ve tried to re-negotiate each day.
Today, the director asked me to come down to her office, and had been very apologetic, and had realised now that we were good people. She had been very suspicious, very worried.
I don’t know what has been happening. I asked if I could look around, see some of the children, and she said that there was no way I could do that.
It’s a very nervous political situation.
I’m hearing one side of the story from one person, one person’s interpretation of it. A social worker said that I would be very welcome back, on my own, in four or five months’ time.
This has been an emotional roller coaster.

How are you holding up?
I’m all right today, because things are a bit friendlier today. Last night, I was just ready to go home.
I’m just so frustrated that they haven’t trusted us enough to see the children. Our intention isn’t to judge, our intention is to work with these children, to get their physical condition better, until something else happens to them. And because it’s such a hot issue, because of the film, people are just afraid to do anything.
We have formed good relations with the staff. They were doing the best that they could, and they’re hurt, because they are losing their jobs.
The people who have helped us here have been so fantastic. Hotel Dunav gave us free accommodation, Slavka and Martin and Ana have been so so good. I persuaded three colleagues to come with me (from England). It would have been great if we had been able to work with the kids.
We don’t know where we’re going from here.
I’m tired and emotional and it just seems strange. But the training has gone well, the staff said that it has been helpful, and that they were planning ways to integrate what they have learnt. There are huge staff-ratio problems. In addition to all their other duties, the staff who work with the children have to clean the facilities, and they’ll be fined if things are not clean.
I can see why life must be so hard for them.
But I am concerned that I neither saw nor heard a child. I saw one little boy, about 12 years old, but I didn’t hear a sound. There are to be 75 children there.

When Mary and I talked again on Saturday morning, hours before their return flight to London, things seemed a bit more positive – they had been to a school for disabled children in Brestovitsa, where, despite what she called “few amenities”, there were smiling child faces and the staff were warm. And Mary, herself, had some hope.

How was it in Brestovitsa?
Some of these children had been in Mogilino, and they looked ok. We could see that there was one girl who had an eye missing. Another boy I recognised from the documentary. But the children were all desperate for contacts, for smiles. These are children from different ethnic backgrounds, and a number take medications for mental health disorders.
One girl said that she had tried to commit suicide three times (she’s in eighth grade). There are some very damaged children there. The children were so friendly, so lovely, you couldn’t help but think that they were hoping that someone would just take them away.
The staff were lovely as well. There was a warmth, the children were holding onto the staff’s arms. This school felt really really good. The children all walked down to the village for an event that had been laid on. I think it was because of the elections, because they came back holding posters.
The school in Brestovitsa was good, considering where it was, which was very very remote.

Mary and the three others from England were later taken to the Angel Kunchev school in Rousse, which works with Save the Children. It is currently being refurbished, and there are hopes to move children from Mogilino to attend Angel Kunchev, where they can be part of a community. She said that the school director Nelly Decheva invited her to an international conference on special needs in spring 2008.

And what about Mogilino?
Even if they move some of the children out, I don’t know what will happen to the most disabled children. I’d still like to maintain links. I don’t know how disabled the children would be who would be moved to Rousse.
In England, the children at Brestovitsa wouldn’t be in a special needs school, because they’re very bright, and they speak several languages, they knew how to use computers (the school has a computer room) and our digital camera. But they might not have Bulgarian as their first language, or they might have slight physical problems, so they’re sent away. They’re given a diagnostic, and it sticks with them for life. Of the about 50 kids, maybe six or seven had serious disabilities. They’re just all lumped together.

What now?
I’m going back, I’ll get my head together. This has been such a complicated series of events. The time at which we came was very bad – with the release of documentary, elections, the teachers strike. It all combined to make it very difficult.
And the sentiments of the people in Mogilino – we’re still not sure. It’s very difficult when you’re getting everything second-hand, through an interpreter.
The big thing is that we didn’t get to see the children, to assess them, to help them, to explain that some of the children at our school are like the children in Mogilino. To explain that sometimes the best resources are not enough. But we cannot pass any comment on that at all.
I do think we’ll come back with positive things to do.
We will come back with helpful people, if people can identify for us what we’re going to do.
On Wednesday, the silence was peculiar.

To watch Kate Blewett’s BBC4 documentary, to go [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9176914173325307126].