UPDATE: Bulgaria's Abandoned Children

~Chameleon~

This morning I've received the updated newsletter outlining the work being done by the charity TBACT to help all the disabled children and young adults currently living in some of the most poorly run state orphanages in Bulgaria.

It's alos come to my attention of a new scheme (you can read more about it within the newsletter) to help the thousands of young babies that are abandoned each year too so they can "adopt a granny" to help take care of them and provide some much needed comfort and human interaction. They are desparately trying to raise funds for that too at http://www.giveagranny.org/

Here is the newsletter ....

Dear Supporters

Despite the frustrations and delays from earlier in the year, we are delighted that as the year draws to an end we are now able to start to see real progress for the children and young adults at Mogilino as well as starting projects that aim to prevent abandonment and help younger children in institutional care in Bulgaria.


Mogilino
The Bulgarian government announced that the Mogilino Home would close firstly in March then postponed until December this year. It has now announced the home will close in June 2009. The main reason for the delayed closing is the inability to find suitable placements for the young adults and some of the blind and bedridden children.

As a result six new Small Group Homes (SGH’s) are being built or renovated for the children from Mogilino through the money raised by the Bulgarian Television Network and UNICEF. Two SGH’s will be situated in Ruse, two more in Varna and two in Sofia.

Of the two SGH’s in Ruse, one has already been opened and three young children have left Mogilino and been resettled there. This is home to 6 children in total, the other three children also were at Mogilino in the past. We are working with the ECIP organisation to assess equipment and staff training needs to ensure that this home really is a new beginning for the children and not a smaller scale institution. The second SGH in Ruse is underway and 5 of the younger children from Mogilino including some of the blind children will be resettled there shortly.

The Varna homes are in development and 5 of the blind children will resettle into one of the homes there – Varna has a distinguished school for blind children – where it is hoped the Mogilino children will attend.

The Sofia homes have been delayed due to wrangling by the municipality over land. Finally last week the contracts were signed and development can begin. Another five blind children from Mogilino will be settled there, including Stoyan – who is now looking so much better having gained weight and is more active after better care has been provided at Mogilino via the various agencies put in place to rehabilitate the children.

TBACT will continue to monitor the progress of these projects and offer assistance where appropriate, as we are currently doing in Ruse.

Whilst provision has been made to resettle the children from Mogilino, it is an entirely different picture for the young adults. Their situation is precarious and there is a real risk that they could be sent to the most inadequate and depressing adults homes. For this reason, TBACT is now in discussion with a partner organisation, KARINA, to develop a SGH for some of the young adults near Ruse.

KARINA is a new NGO established to help the prevention of abandonment in Bulgaria and also to specifically help young adults live as independently as possible in a community environment. KARINA has earmarked two houses as potential new SGH’s for some of the young adults from Mogilino. One property is in Ruse and the other is in a village about 10 kilometres outside the city. We are in discussion about renovating the properties as soon as possible to prepare the two houses as homes and recruiting and training the staff. BACT is looking to support both projects and to provide some of the running costs for the first year for either or both. This is a very exciting project as it offers a solution to helping some of those remaining at Mogilino – saving them from the adult institutes.

Nearly half of the 65 children and young adults at Mogilino have been resettled. Three young women have been sent to a protected home for young adults in Gorna Chiflik and 5 physically disabled young adults have been sent to another protected home in Pcheliste – Vasky amongst them. Vasky has improved a great deal since the film was made and is now able to walk a little and is apparently communicating more.

We have appointed a representative in Bulgaria who has been tasked with tracking all the Mogilino children and young adults after they leave in order to ensure they have been suitably resettled and we will of course keep our supporters up to date with information on their progress.


Early Intervention
Despite a declining population, the number of babies and young children being placed into institutional care has remained steady for the past five years which in real terms means the proportion of young children going into institutions has increased.

Intervention at the earliest stage is the key to keeping children out of these huge, impersonal deeply damaging, environments. TBACT is supporting a Prevention of Abandonment project that is being run by the excellent Karin Dom centre. The project aims to get to the source of the problem to start reducing the numbers still going into institutes. This involves training the medical professionals and the parents of disabled babies about the importance of being part of a family and not seeking to encourage or physically abandon these babies but instead to bring them up within the family home but using Day Care Centres and other facilities that can help a person with disabilities – and make them part of a community.


The Baba Scheme
Over 1,000 babies and young children are placed in institutions every year in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Government cites the number of institutions that have been closed so far as proof of their commitment to de-institutionalisation. However, only one baby home has been closed in Bulgaria in recent years and given that the numbers of children abandoned hasn't drastically reduced it means that more children are having to be cared for by less staff in overcrowded homes.

As a result the situation in some of the homes is appalling and despite the high numbers of babies and young children in them, the government funding remains woefully inadequate with many homes reliant on humanitarian aid convoys for the most basic supplies – including nappies.

Staff often have to look after at least 20 children at any one time; feeding, washing and dressing them, as well as carrying out other duties, so there is little time for interaction. As a result the babies and children often spend their days lying in cribs or propped up on chairs with little stimulation or contact.

Whilst TBACT’s purpose is to see the institutional care system dismantled in Bulgaria, we accept that this will take years if not decades to achieve. We have to date supported projects that specifically aim to keep children out of institutional care or get children out of it. However, the situation in some of the baby homes is so dire that we believe we should intervene – in ways that benefit the children directly.

We are not going to try and change any institution into a 'good home' as children should not be in these places however well run they might be. Children need to be in families and where that isn't possible a family style home should be the alternative.

We aim to support these children through the Baba Scheme – sponsoring mature women to become 'Granny's' to a specific child and providing one on one attention and care that nurtures the child and helps them to develop a relationship with another human being. This month we have started our first Baba Scheme in a baby home (for 250 young children) in northern Bulgaria. The project provides Baba's to 40 children and we hope to be able to help many more of the children in this home next year. We are also providing an additional psychologist and physical therapists at the home in order to rehabilitate some of the children – many of whom are in terrible physical condition. We also hope to have volunteers to start a volunteer project in the home from April next year.

We have set up a Baba Fundraising Programme: www.giveagranny.org for supporters who want to sponsor this project or grab some last minute Christmas vouchers!

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In summary our objectives for 2009 are:

• To assist the resettlement of the remaining children from Mogilino into family style Small Group Homes.
• To assist the resettlement of the young adults into protected homes and Small Group Homes.
• To support the prevention of abandonment through outreach work and supportive services for families with disabled children.
• To further develop our Baba Scheme in several locations in Bulgaria – and retain records and data to demonstrate the benefits of nurturing care for an abandoned infant.
• To promote and support a rolling volunteer project in at least one instititution for young children through out partner organisation, CAST, starting in April 2009.

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This year our supporters raised over £200,000 to help Bulgaria's abandoned children. Most of this money has been dedicated to the rehabilitation and resettlement of the Mogilino children and young adults. However in order to achieve our objectives for 2009 we need to raise a further £150,000 next year.

We are extremely grateful to all of you for your continued support. We are constantly surprised and humbled by the dedication and motivation of our supporters whether they be fundraisers, campaigners, or donors – or sometimes all three! Occasionally, we receive donations from people who haven't provided an address and although we do like to send our thanks to every donor we are sometimes unable to for this reason. We are wholly reliant on our supporters and without you we cannot run our projects and so we thank you wholeheartedly for caring about Bulgaria's abandoned children.


Whilst every message is important to us we regret that we will be unable to reply in person at our [EMAIL="info@tbact.org"]info@tbact.org[/EMAIL] address before the 5th of January 09.

However, we wish you all a happy Christmas and New Year.


The TBACT Team

Original discussion thread can be found here ... http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=551741&highlight=bulgaria+children

mummytofour

I got this too. I think the granny scheme is an amazingly fab idea and I hope it woks.