MOGILINO
MOGILINO
MOGILINO
Is Co-operation Possible? by Slavka KUKOVA Over the past 5 weeks, following the broadcast of the film “Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children” (at the home for mentally disabled children in the village of Mogilino) a lot has been written and said. Apparently, the film caused a lot of attention and comments - in the UK, among people who have seen it, and in Bulgaria, mostly among people who haven’t. A number of British comments included proposals of help and support, while in Bulgaria these took the shape of elaborating on what is impossible to change and how helpless our national policy is against societal attitudes toward children with disabilities. The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) took on the role of an engine for change in the views and policies toward the children in such homes. It had foreseen that under pressure and in panic the Ministry of Social Policy would resort to transferring the children and young people from Mogilino to other homes (as had happened with the homes in Dzhurkovo, Fakiya, and Dobromirtsi), and wanted to pave the way for a proper defining of this problem and to make sure that its solution ultimately followed the best interests of the children. This is not quite so easy but the effort has yielded some impact. BHC prepared a plan for the alliance of NGOs lobbying for Bulgaria’s children rights and interests, service providers, and the state to ensure closing the home by guaranteeing the children’s access to quality health, social, and educational services. The plan also involved a preliminary assessment of the possibility for development of similar services in Ruse. It was submitted to Ministry officials visiting the home at Mogilino on 3 October. On 9 October the Bulgarian Mothers Movement organised a demonstration against the lack of care for children with mental disabilities in these homes where it presented its demands with regard to the Mogilino home to the BHC; following the demonstration, they also submitted them to the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy (MLSP). The BHC plan was also disseminated among organisations such as the Centre for Inclusive Education (formerly Save the Children), For Our Children (formerly Every Child), the Karine Dom Foundation, the British ARK Foundation and others who gathered as early as the end of September and started thinking of their possible contribution toward real action. In the UK, a trust was founded solely for the children of Mogilino and their actual deinstitutionalisation. A meeting of the founders with anyone willing to help was to be held on 1 November at St Mary’s Church in London in order to discuss the specific steps already taken in Bulgaria and prospective support. As a result of the efforts in Bulgaria, and following a series of NGO meetings with other NGOs, MLSP, and the Social Assistance Agency (SAA), 19 October 2007 saw the setting out of specific steps. The MLSP and SAA agreed to co-operate with NGOs with the necessary expertise for work with institutionalised children with disabilities. They have committed to following BHC’s plan. The For Our Children Foundation prepared a proposal for evaluation of every child’s potential and needs, as well as the possibility for their servicing in Ruse, which was presented at the meeting between UNICEF, the Social Activities and Practices Institute, the ARK Foundation, the ECIP Foundation, the Bulgarian Association for Persons
with Intellectual Disabilities (BAPID), the International Social Service, and BHC. UNICEF agreed to pay for this evaluation. The Social Activities and Practices Institute expressed their readiness to join in with trained social workers to work with the children in the home during this evaluation. ARK stated that if the MLSP and the SAA need funding for ensuring residential care for the children and youth of Mogilino, the Foundation can provide this and also take part in any negotiations with the local county authorities in view of providing buildings and the adaptation of these to the children’s needs. The evaluation was be carried out as early as the beginning of November provided there was an agreement between the SAA, MLSP, For Our Children Foundation, and UNICEF. Among the specialists preparing the evaluation would be lecturers from the New Bulgarian University, the Bulgarian Institute of Human Relations, local child protection departments and Social Assistance divisions, as well as BAPID experts. The MLSP inspection revealed that 7 children have already been transferred to a subsidiary school in the village of Brestovitsa (near Ruse), and of the remaining 67, 29 are aged above 18. For these children possibilities will be looked at for transferrals to sheltered housing where vacancies are available. Opportunities will be explored for the remaining 38 children to be resettled with biological families, professional foster care, adoption, and settling in a small group family type home in Ruse. According to the evaluating committee, the latter opportunity should be looked at for the majority of the children, as professional foster care is not developed as a service in Bulgaria, while no potential adoptive parents have expressed an interest, and only the biological parents of one child have agreed to assume responsibility in return for some assistance from the state. BHC has requested that the MLSP take two other urgent steps to guarantee the rights of children with disabilities: firstly, all remaining 26 homes like the one in Mogilino to be moved to the large administrative centres within the next 6 months, and, monthly assistance of at least 500 leva to be provided for all families of children with disabilities (of which there are more than 19,000, according to the State Agency for Child Protection records). There are a few significant things to highlight about this Mogilino story: - the resulting wide public response and protest against discrimination of children with disabilities; - the breakthrough in state inertia in transferring children from one home to another, and the publicly announced invitation for work and co-operation with NGOs; - that NGOs managed to put the child’s interest first, and united in thinking and activities around it; A lot of Bulgarians wrote from abroad wishing to help and share their experience of raising, training, and work with children with mental disabilities and we are truly grateful. BHC will continue its active advocacy for respecting the rights of children with disabilities and is hoping to succeed in uniting even more state bodies, NGOs, experts, and parents in the effort to change the quality of life first of the children in Mogilino, and then of all other children in similar institutions. BHC is hoping to see a more positive outcome of them living among us as complete and valued members of our society.
OBEKTIV 1