[size=55:sr732wm2]BNR
House of Hope Every year 2000 Bulgarian children are accommodated in social institutions. Half of them are babies abandoned in the maternity wards of the hospitals. 98% of children left without parental care actually have parents and only 2% are orphans or their parents are unknown. Living in an institution dooms these children to loneliness and lack of love. Long-term experience has demonstrated that raising children in large groups, without individual care and attention is a harmful practice. That is why in the past year Bulgaria has stepped up measures for de institutionalization. A number of non-governmental organisations have also started working in the sphere. Hope for the Little Ones Foundation opened a family-type centre for taking care of children below the age of 3 a year ago.
“The things that make our centre a different place is the cosiness, the family atmosphere and individual care provided for children,” Magdalena Stefanova, director of the Centre says. “Children in our centre get all the attention and love they need. They have personal space in the house, as well as their own clothes and toys. The children learn here to trust and love just like children with parents naturally do so. It is important to provide these children with the opportunity to feel loved and understand that there are people whom they can trust. The biggest problem with the institutional type of care is that children in big institutions do not get enough attention and love and they cannot later give love to others and have fulfilling relationships.”
The centre of the foundation is a cosy house in a Sofia neighbourhood at the foot of the Vitosha Mountain. In a family type of environment 8 children are taken care of. Young women, mostly social workers and pedagogues work with the children in the centre. The most important thing however is not qualification but enthusiasm and motivation, Magdalena Stefanova says. The house of hope is the result of the work of the foundation. The budget of the centre which is about 45,000 Euro a year comes from donations of Bulgarian citizens and companies. Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova, who opened the House of Hope last year vowed to provide state support for the centre. Ms. Stefanova hopes that this will become a reality in a few months. The NGO successfully cooperates with the child protection departments in Sofia. This partnership aims to provide true parental care for the children.
We want the centre to be a temporary stop, Magdalena Stefanova explains. 12 children have passed through the centre for a year, as 2 of them were returned to their parents and 3 now live in foster families. One child is also soon to be adopted. Here is what Ms. Stefanova told us about the moment of departure.
“Emotional connection is inevitable, when you take care of a child for several months. We take care of them as if they were our own children and the moment of departure is a strange one. One feels sad and at the same time happy because the children will go to a better place. This is so because a child needs true parental care. After the children leave the house, we continue keeping contact with their new families. I am glad that the families regard us as friends and call us to inform us about what is happening with the children. This shows that we are doing a good job.”
The Hope for the Little Ones Centre has more than 4600 friends in Face-book, where one can find information about the work of the NGO and its upcoming initiatives. Since its establishment the centre enjoys high volunteers’ interest.
“I was surprised to find out that Bulgarians were actually enthusiastic about volunteer work. Before we opened the centre, the house needed a complete renovation. Volunteers did all the work. We published our needs on our web-site:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and Face-book and a number of people helped us. After the centre opened, the volunteer support continued. We currently have a big network of volunteers who spend their free time in the centre. We are very grateful to these young women because the centre does not have enough finances to hire more employees, and volunteer work is of great importance to us.”
Mon Jun 13, 2011 8:31 pm
