The Abandoned Children of Bulgaria (part 1 of 5)

A children's home in Bulgaria that is a dumping ground for the unwanted.
Director Kate Blewett visits a children's care home in Bulgaria and investigates the conditions in which the children live.

Following the completion of the film, the production team offered the Bulgarian Embassy in London the opportunity to comment on the findings made in the course of filming the documentary:
The Social Care Home - where 75 unwanted children are growing up - is the main employer in the small village of Mogilino. Few of the children can talk, not necessarily because they are unable but rather because no one has ever taught them how.

Kate meets the children in this tragic, silent world, such as Milan, the gentle giant who spends his days doing chores and watching over the others, and mildly autistic 18-year-old Didi, who is able to talk, and has plenty to say, but no one to speak to. The children that surround them suffer a variety of problems, many are blind or deaf and some are unable to leave their beds, many are literally wasting away.

Abandoned into the hands of the staff at Mogilino these children inhabit a bleak uncaring world, so devoid of normal everyday stimulus that many have taken to rocking slowly and constantly in their chairs just for something to do.

Bulgaria has more institutionalised mentally and physically disabled children than anywhere else in Europe. This film is a heart-rending and eye-opening look into the life of one such institution.

Update: Friday 16 November 2007

Some changes have taken place since the first showing of this film on BBC Four in September 2007. A team of Non Government Organisations (NGOs) is working with the government to bring about changes to the lives of disabled children growing up in the state institutes in Bulgaria. This NGO alliance is made up of teams who have been working on the ground in Bulgaria for years.

The children in the home in Mogilino have recently been assessed by a medical team, and rehabilitation plans are being put together for each child. Specialists like speech therapists and physiotherapists are being assigned to Mogilino to work with the children. In the long term the plan is to either build purpose-built small group care homes for the disabled - or to relocate the children to better environments with Day Care Centres and potential schooling.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Bulgaria
• BBC
• nederlandstalig
• abandoned
• children
• child
• abuse
• neglect
• torture
• health
• humanities
• medicine
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• documentary

[MrSeekLoad]

Children treated worse then animals. Animals are better treated. Theyre is no excuse... These are criminals with the law on there side. They should be arrested. Put these children with love caring nurses not monsters! They need love, affection and education. They are tortured not nursed. They would have bin better shot, then killed slowly like this. But I would shoot the nurses, because for some children it is still hope. Didi is smart, not so as she has become because of the place...

[Haglaz]

This is why I hate humanity... and at the same time... it is why I do not give up my last hope.

[madfox15]

Everytime i got something to wine about, i watch this and i realise how stupid most of my wishes are. I bet theyre wish, that even 1 day, they would not have pain and they would be treated nice and gentle.. This breaks my heart and maked me cry..

[VivaLaNovak]

this beaks my heart.. god this is terrible... :'(

[AmandaZ131]

omg i have been miserable wanting to know what happened to them all...

[VanOostjien]

Todal? at 6:09 is pretty hot haha

[christianscott123]

@Busvissel God or no God we are humans there is going to be horror and evil The question isint If there is a God or not.

[Busvissel]

if there was a god, it would be no evil like this.

[IndrekValdek]

Now think about the video you've seen.

Think about humanists in various prisons with their RIGHTS.

What THE FUCK is wrong with this world, I don't get it?!...

[megatech1966]

Vasky is a girl. She is skinny because isn't been fed properly. She is no longer living there. She lives in a home with other blind people. She is fed properly now and she has physiotherapy to help her walk. She talks a lot more now and she sings!

And her leg WAS broken.

She is looking and feeling much better now.

That horrible place has been shut down.

My heart goes out to the poor kids. I am glad to see them having a better life and being taken care of properly.

[holographicplanet]

This shit is just fucking sad.

[noiseboy29]

How the hell can this be happening in the modern world? This is disgusting, appalling and disturbing. My heart goes out to these little lost souls. Lost through the ignorance of the system that has failed them!