The Karina Association is working to help improve the lives of Bulgaria's disabled children, reversing decades-long practices of neglect.These disabled children are placed to live in warehouses throughout the country's hidden places. Our goal is to provide community-based support in small group homes.

We know that much better care can and should be provided for such children. We seek to provide community-based support in small group homes, where children can be nurtured and receive appropriate rehabilitative care to improve their quality of life. The Karina Association needs your help to make these policies become reality for every child and young adult.

It is the smell that assaults you - filthy nappies, unwashed babies, rotting flesh. Then you are hit by the silence, an eerie, unnatural silence, the silence of babies who have given up hope of ever being consoled, cuddled or comforted. It is the dreadful quiet of starving, neglected, unloved children waiting to die.

The children in this particular wing have no human contact. They are fed lying on their backs, and have their nappies changed only when there happens to be a supply of new ones. Not one single word is uttered to them, so none of them is able to talk... Continue reading

Excerpted with permission from the Times Online

In 2007 a British film, Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children, was made about a state institution in the village of Mogilino in northeastern Bulgaria, where 75 children lived. This film provoked a reaction of the Bulgarian Government and the nation. This started the real change. more...