Source:
The Bulgarian Abandoned Children's Trust via the Wayback Machine, webcapture dated 4 January, 2008
https://web.archive.org/web/20081004173220/http://www.tbact.org/38cb85baf41e4b69a638031a16258efe.htm
The article:
Demand for reform grows as Bulgaria's Abandoned Children is shown in Sofia for the first time.
12/11/2007
The furore that was raised following the broadcast of Kate Blewett's documentary Bulgaria's Abandoned Children on BBC4 in the UK shows no signs of dissipating in Bulgaria.
A screening of a shortened version of the film was held at The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate in Sofia on the evening of 6th November. This screening was the first time the film has been shown in Bulgaria.
Attendance far exceeded the Centre's normal seating capacity of 200 people and estimates suggest over 350 people were there. Six government ministers, the US ambassador John Beyrle and the former Bulgarian foreign affairs minister Ivan Stancioff as well as many representatives from NGO's working in Bulgaria were also present.
Kate Blewett was overwhelmed by the audience's response: 'At the end of the film there was total silence. No sound except crying. No one moved. The lights went on and then the audience clapped - with a number of people standing up to clap. It was very moving[.]'
A lively discussion on the topic of 'What Is Being Done, What to Do, and How' followed the film and the panel included Kate Blewett, Labour and Social Policy Minister Ivanka Hristova, Director of the State Agency for Child Protection Shirin Mestan, Director of the Social Welfare Agency Gergana Dryanska, Assen Petrov from the Education Ministry, Rossitsa Boukova from Bulgarian Mothers Movement and Slavka Kukova from the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee.
Kate Blewett began the debate by expressing the wish that each child should have a loving family home, to which Minister Hristova concurred, and explained that the Labour and Social Policy Minister had written to each of the families with a child at the social care home in Mogilino, explaining the process of closing down remote institutes and the overall "de-institutionalisation" of such places, suggesting that the parents become involved with their children's fates. Only one family agreed; there are more than 65 children living in the former schoolhouse in Mogilino.
Kate Blewett's response, echoed by the overflowing hall, was that the closing down of Mogilino was not necessarily the best option, because the children would just be sent elsewhere, which does not always equate better care. She asked: "If there are better places for these children to go, why weren't they moved before?" To which she added that this should be accompanied by records of where they are then sent.
Stating that she would only say what the State Agency for Child Protection had done, and not what [it] was going to do, Shirin Mestan said that a plan had been worked out for the closing of Mogilino, and that it was to be implemented shortly, but then the film happened and all the uproar precluded any action. "We found there to be great wrongs against humanity in the home," she said but added that Mogilino did not represent the condition of children's social care homes in Bulgaria as a whole.
Countering this, Kate Blewett said that anyone could surf the internet and find plenty of others’ experiences of social care homes in Bulgaria to know that Mogilino was not a place a part. She again called for the level of care towards the children to change.
Rossitsa Boukova recalling that the first cry against Mogilino had come in 1999, when it was listed for shut-down. "Why did it have to come to this (a foreign film) for the situation to be noticed?" she asked. She said that people need to recognise their mistakes and be willing to leave their positions.
Whilst no conclusions were reached at the event, The Campaign for Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children is pleased to see that awareness and protest is gaining momentum in Bulgaria.
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