UNICEF will provide money for the reconstruction of a building in the town of Rousse, which would be transformed into the first shelter for the children from Mogilino social care home. The money was collected during the TV show Velikolepnata shestorka (the Magnificent Six) aired on private broadcaster bTV.
The social care home gained bad fame after UKs BBC4 channel broadcast a documentary showing the condition of the children in the home.
The first shelter would accommodate six to eight children, UNICEF said in a statement. Another 10 children would be sheltered temporarily in the Nadezhda (Hope) social care home in Rousse. Experts would continue working with these children to improve their social abilities.
Negotiations with major municipalities, which offer social and healthcare services and are close to the families of the Mogilino children, were being held, according to UNICEF.
The planning for such shelters is based on individual evaluation of the children, which ended in the end of March 2008. The evaluations of the condition and the care needed by each child were part of the Social Assistance Agency plan for closure of the social care home in Mogilino, carried out in co-operation with UNICEF and an alliance of NGOs.
The concept that the progress of the children was possible only in the context of continuous, safe, individual relation with an adult was set in the evaluation, the media statement said. A multidisciplinary team of experts, who established individually contacts to each child, carried out the evaluation.
Over the past month, three girls from Mogilino were transferred to a shelter, where they could have a more independent and complete life. Three other children were accommodated near their families to facilitate contact with their parents. These children are to start re-integration in their families.
UNICEF supported the plan for closure of the home in Mogilino, which was part of the process of de-institutionalisation in Bulgaria, the statement read.
