• Login

Sun, May 26 2013

Hopes for home for Mogilino children by 2009

Wed, Jul 16 2008 21:42 CET 2985 Views 3 Comments

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.

  • Print
  • Send via email
  • Translate to
  • Share:

Comments

Anonymous karen Wed, Jun 10 2009 11:20 CET

i hope they help the adults too they had nothing either, and that's where these kids were heading next
nz

Anonymous grace Tue, Mar 17 2009 18:24 CET

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?

Anonymous Sandra Kiris Fri, Feb 20 2009 05:58 CET

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.


To post comments, please, Login or Register.


Please read the The Sofia Echo forum comments policy.

BBC to show Blewett’s sequel to documentary about Bulgaria’s Mogilino

Eighteen months after her documentary about the Mogilino children’s home in Bulgaria that caused an outcry about the treatment of the children, independent film-maker Kate Blewett has produced a sequel, to be shown on BBC4 on October 15 2009.

President: Mogilino has been transformed

Social Minister Emilia Maslarova presents her own film about the Mogilino home amid claims of improvement

Institutionalisation of children is unnecessary, claims campaigner

Leading fundraiser slams Bulgaria for the "inhumanity" of its children's homes and calls for reappraisal by government and families

Little House for Mogilino children to be built in Varna

The first of five Little Houses offering shelter to eight children from the Mogilino social care home is being built.

More in this category

Saab awarded $2.4M military training equipment contract in Bulgaria

The funding is provided under the foreign military sales programme of the US army's Program Executive Office of Simulation, Training and Instrumentation.

Two Brits fined for hooliganism in Bulgaria’s Veliko Turnovo

The UK nationals were arrested after throwing beer bottles at people after being refused entry to a restaurant that had closed for the night.

Tourism: Bulgaria to spend 300M leva on restoring castles, ancient sites

Restoration and development projects include Madara Horseman, Arbanassi fortress, Magura cave.

Sovereign Order of Malta assists hospital in Bulgaria’s Iskrets

Simeon Saxe-Coburg and his spouse Margarita opened a new heating and insulation system at the Tsar Ferdinand Hospital for Pulmonary Diseases in Iskrets, a project implemented thanks to the Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta in Sofia and the Nando Peretti Foundation.

Bulgarian Parliament passes confiscation act

According to the law's provisions, the commission will have the power to investigate individuals without prior notification and would not require a criminal conviction in order to launch an investigation.