Rescuing Bulgaria's Abandoned Children

By Mary Lancaster
The Nantucket Independent

In Greek, the word "karina" means pure. In Swedish it translates to beloved one, and in Italian it means cute baby. Karina is the name Bulgarian immigrant Biliana Borimetchkova chose for her nonprofit association with its mission to rescue and nurture Bulgaria's abandoned, disabled children who live loveless, wretched existences in what amount to human warehouses.

"I think this name presents what we want to do. Children need to be loved," said Borimetchkova, who lived on Nantucket for about a year from June 1991.

Borimetchkova, her husband and daughter became Baltimore residents in 1997 but the family remains members of the island's Summer Street Baptist Church and visit Nantucket as often as possible. She was here recently to help establish the fundraiser "Campaign for Bulgaria's Abandoned Children," to be held at the Coffin School on July 17. The Karina Association was founded in October 2008 in Bulgaria and as a nonprofit registered in America in February of this year.

Borimetchkova explained that Bulgaria, under Communist rule until 1991, has had a long practice of its doctors telling parents of children born with a disability that the children would be better off if given over to the government to provide their care. Under the guise of charity, the government's goal was actually to hide these children, said Borimetchkova, so that it appeared all Bulgarians were whole and healthy.

"The parents have no support or training to know that their child can develop abilities to lead a normal life," she said, sitting with the church's Rev. Richard Leland, who raised money and personally traveled to Bulgaria late summer 1992 to bring Borimetchkova's two-year-old daughter Rumi to the island.

"[The government] would just hide the children. The institutions were built in small villages in the mountains where nobody can see or visit these children."

Although she knew such institutions existed when she was living in Bulgaria, she did not comprehend their horrid living conditions until she investigated on her own and learned there are 100 such warehouses containing approximately 8,000 children between the ages of two and 18. Most of the institutions have only two caregivers on staff, with just one on duty at night.

"Some of the older children abuse the younger children," she said. "There is a lot of abuse and nobody can help the children because there are only two caregivers available."

Borimetchkova's quest to find a way to free these orphans began when she saw a heart-wrenching documentary called "Bulgaria's Abandoned Children" filmed by BBC journalist Kate Blewett that revealed the children's unspeakable situation to the Bulgarian Embassy in London.

The film, which will be shown in abbreviated form at the fundraiser, depicts the lonely life of 75 youth in a home called Rudink in the village of Mogilino near the coast of The Black Sea. Few of the children can speak, often because no one ever taught them language, some are physically wasting away or blind or deaf, and most are so emotionally starved that they constantly rock themselves as a means of selfcomfort.

Last year Borimetchkova contacted Blewett and formed a relationship with her to aid the needy children. Blewett had already raised some funds in the U.K. to establish a trust for the project, and Borimetchkova set about to do the same in the U.S. They are already making progress.
The association has found a large, 13-room house in Ruse, Bulgaria not far from where the film was made.

Borimetchkova was able to obtain 0,000 in Bulgarian government funds to renovate the house where eight of the most severely disabled teenagers at Rudink will be moved in November. That event will be the first in the association's massive effort to deinstitutionalize all the country's abandoned children and place them in homes where they will receive the proper individual medical and psychological care. It is hoped this first new home will serve as a model to be used throughout Bulgaria.

Borimetchkova, who noted that the association has asked the government to provide free houses Karina can renovate, said plans are also in the works to present an intervention and prevention program for parents of newborn disabled children to stop further institutionalization and provide services and training for families so they are able to care for their own children.

Twelve children have already been moved from Rudink to a private home called Hope by UNICEF. The Karina Association is aligning with UNICEF to help offer rehabilitation services for those dozen youth. The association will provide all required therapies and medical attention for the eight who will move this fall and all the children to follow.

"No social system developed to care for these children or how to handle it until the journalist made the movie and exposed [the situation] to all of Europe. The government denied it and said 'This is not true,'" said Borimetchkova.

However, Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007, and after the film aired and the embassy saw it that same year, the Union intervened and Bulgaria could no longer hide its secret. Needing then to take corrective action, Bulgaria applied for financial assistance from the World Bank, which lent the country million last year to start an end to the neglect.

"The process is long," said Borimetchkova. "People don't know how to handle the situation. The goal is to have the Bulgarian government eventually take over the program for the remaining [institutionalized] children, and then, hopefully, the program will end. The ultimate goal is to stop the abandonment. This is just the beginning. It is going to take a long time, but it is very rewarding."

The Friday, July 17 program starts with Kate Blewett's film and comments from her, followed by a talk by Borimetchkova as president of the Karina Association, then Tihomir Stoytchev, the Bulgarian ambassador to the U.S., will speak. There will next be a poetry reading by Frank Cunningham and 15-minute concert with Robert Behrman on piano and Armen Ghazaryan on violin performing music by Schumann and Aram Khachaturian.

The fundraiser begins at 7 p.m. at the Coffin School, 4 Winter St. It is a free event. Donations to the Karina Association go directly to a special Baltimore bank account and will be used toward finishing the association's first home in Bulgaria.

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