Bulgaria's Abandoned Children (Does Boards.ie have any power? Test it!)

dame

There are children in Europe living in absolutely appalling conditions.


BULGARIA'S ABANDONED CHILDREN


Read the thread linked below, use the link within it and watch the program, then do something about it.


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055185441





Mods, can a petition be set up for boardsies to sign? This could then be forwarded to the Irish government, Bulgarian government and the European Parliament.

mikemac

Your link doesn't work

No online petition has ever achieved anything worthwhile

And if you read the thread you'd know the European Parliament are aware of this

It's a sad case but wasn't everyone talking about Romanian orphans a few years ago. Where does it end?

Sorry, if I've come across as unhelpful

dame

micmclo wrote: »

Your link doesn't work

No online petition has ever achieved anything worthwhile

And if you read the thread you'd know the European Parliament are aware of this

It's a sad case but wasn't everyone talking about Romanian orphans a few years ago. Where does it end?

Sorry, if I've come across as unhelpful

Link has been fixed.

Awareness doesn't necessarily mean something is being done about it. Pressure from the public can and does force action. Inaction never achieves anything.

Thanks for the input though. Romania's orphanages seem to have been cleaned up due to it being made a condition of their joining the EU.

dame

Nobody?

humanji

Can we fix Ireland first?

GhostInTheRuins

Micmclo is right, online petitions are pointless.

dame

humanji wrote: »

Can we fix Ireland first?

OK, pick a starting point. I'd like to fix Ireland too.

Can we not do both simultaneously?

SimpleSam06

There are children in Moscow living literally in the sewers, prey to anyone who comes along.

There are children in the Philippines incarcerated with hardened criminals, who get raped almost daily.

There are children in Thailand and Vietnam prostituted with the full consent of their families.

Many female children in China are victims of infanticide due to their belief that a female child cannot provide them with a pension.

And believe me thats just the tip of the iceberg.

The plight of children worldwide in many places is well known, but like famine and a lot of disease, it comes down to their governments. What can be done to help them all? Its the governments that need to be fixed, no petitions are going to do that. Truth be told I don't know what can be done, short of invading them or putting severe economic pressure on them to straighten up their houses.

AlmightyCushion

Sure those Bulgarian children have it handy compared to some of the children I've seen. There is a child that lives down the road from me and the poor guy isn't getting a wii for christmas because they are all sold out. Absolutely disgusting it is. All he wants to do is play mario on christmas day but instead he'll have to make do with his xbox 360 and his playstation 3.

Bertie goes and gives himself a nice big pay rise when there are children in the world having to go with out their wii this christmas. It'd make you sick.

wil

For those who haven't seen it.

Bulgaria, with 1/50th of its child population - abandoned children, secrets them in hidden away rundown, hellhole institutions, where they are effectively left to die out the remainder of their lives, unloved, unwanted, uncared for.
Think that about covers it.

Yes it was pretty damn appalling. It was aired a few months back on Beeb4 and probably didnt get much notice. Thats a relevent point, back in the day of the Romanian orphanages expose, there were far fewer channels and so now outrages like these get diluted among the 1000s of channels/blogs/fora etc.
It made for some harrowing watching.(TBH only for my wife, I probably wouldnt have watched it all.)
It is hard to understand the indifference and apathy of the "carers", "Dont carers" would be more apt. It is something that we have to realise, life is cheap in many countries.
All the home director wanted was a computer. Not proper food for the children.

Abandonment results for the simplest of reasons, such as deafness, blindness, slight autism, whatever. Romania, as a result of outcries after seeing the conditions in their orphanages were forced to accept improvement of them as a condition of entrance to the EU.
No such condition was put on Bulgaria, despite having the highest number of institutionalised children in Europe/USSR. The state of the children wasnt any better here, and that was claimed to not be one of the worst. Official Bulgarian responses to the program were pathetic.
As EU citizens, surely they deserve slightly better protection by the EU. But they dont and never will vote.
It ends when IT ends. Children deserve better.

People stopped talking about Romanian orphanages because of a result of people like dame etc, they didnt accept nothing could be done. If there is one thing we Irish know, it's how not to accept the most appalling injustices as being inevitable.

Probably the most powerful answer to your question - 'what can anyone do?' was illustrated by a beautiful young Ethiopian girl standing hand in hand with Bob Geldof at Live8 when 22 years previous she was the face of death.

Spurred on by the awful images seen on BBC, an Irishman and a Scotsman decided there was something they could do. And to prove it Ireland 1985, in the middle of its own economic black hole, was the most generous donator per capita and the rallying force behind much larger nations to do "not nothing".

My impression is that if enough people outside of Bulgaria showed they cared even a tiny amount for the plight of these children it might even slightly compel the authorities in to not continuing to do nothing. (see link below) It is attitudes, on the ground and in authority that need changing.

So surely you can come up with some better ideas than "dont just do something, stand there"
For a small start perhaps STF might consider diverting some of those toys in that direction.
Even if it was only a token gesture, it might just mean something. (I am aware of the cautions in the link below)

What about a blanket appeal across all boards fora. How many people get to view more than a couple in any day? I am sure there are plenty of ideas out there, AH may not the the place for them, but it probably is one of the most viewed fora on here.

And for some real suggestions on how to help.
(If you have skipped through the rest at least do read this)

http://warehousesofneglect.civiblog.org/blog/HowtoHelp/_archives/2007/9/15/3231788.html

As a great woman once said - she couldn't solve the worlds problems but she could make a little difference in people's lives "one by one by one"

Jesus Wept

wil wrote: »

As a great woman once said - she couldn't solve the worlds problems but she could make a little difference in people's lives "one by one by one"

Indeed, she got through a few thousand, then croaked.

dame

Thank you wil, excellent post.

event

micmclo wrote: »

No online petition has ever achieved anything worthwhile

D.T. Jesus wrote: »

Micmclo is right, online petitions are pointless.

they got wispa's back

event

event wrote: »

they got wispa's back

Cool. Let's petition for Bulgaria's Abandoned Children to be sold in the shops again.

odyssey06

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

There are children in Moscow living literally in the sewers, prey to anyone who comes along. There are children in the Philippines incarcerated with hardened criminals, who get raped almost daily...

If Bulgaria wasn't in the EU you might have a point, but as we, for good or ill, are part of a common, democratic parliament, this is hardly the same situation.

What exactly is the European Parliament for, if it does nothing about something like this? Just an excuse for some Irish people to get huge expenses?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Myth wrote: »

Cool. Let's petition for Bulgaria's Abandoned Children to be sold in the shops again.

No need to be facetious

Myth

Myth wrote: »

Cool. Let's petition for Bulgaria's Abandoned Children to be sold in the shops again.

Batteries not included

Warning:
May contain choking hazard. Keep out of reach of children

humanji

odyssey06 wrote: »

If Bulgaria wasn't in the EU you might have a point, but as we, for good or ill, are part of a common, democratic parliament, this is hardly the same situation.

What exactly is the European Parliament for, if it does nothing about something like this? Just an excuse for some Irish people to get huge expenses?

That seems the point. The EU does f*ck all else.

dame

So have any of you watched the documentary and sent an email yet?

Take a bit of time away from boards and look at and write something useful. It won't kill you. Inaction will lead to the actual or living death of thousands of children (1 in 50 children from a total population of 8 million) in a European country. A country some of the people on After Hours tonight have probably visited on holiday.

How many people were in your year in school or college? Imagine if 1 in 50 of them had been incarcerated (effectively for life) from a very young age.

How many of you know a person who has a hearing or sight impairment or some other disability? Maybe you know someone who is slightly autistic? If they lived in Bulgaria they would most likely have lived out almost their entire life in an institution; never spoken to, never going outdoors, never growing because they are malnourished, never receiving any education, possibly never even learning to speak, never receiving any love or attention and possibly being abused. They would be treated no better than a domestic animal. They may have become completely bed-ridden or have died by now. Think about it.

If all you are doing now is passing the time reading and replying to humorous threads on After Hours, then you can definitely afford a bit of time to reach out and try to make other people's lives better.

Watch the documentary.

Bros123

There are people like dame and myself who will keep posting here about this issue.As said in other posts here,yes children all over the world are living in appalling conditions and it isn't possible for the average man or woman to do anything about it.But what we are talking about here is AN EU COUNTRY AND WE ARE EU CITIZENS!!!
As i have already said in the other thread its up to US to email,ring and annoy our own politicians about this.Forget posting jokey or "theres nothing we can do about" comments.Spend even 10 minutes watching that video and spend another 10 googling as many politicians as you can think of and let them know we aren't having any of this.
Ireland signed up to the European union and like it or not its here to stay.If the generation of todays Irish were to think its ok for other European children to be treated like this it would be a sad day indeed.
Start shouting about this.MEP's need a wake up call if they think its ok for a country that treats it's most vulnerable like this to be welcomed with open arms into the EU and it starts with us here.
Please keep all the smart comment's and the "we cant's"for somewhere else.

Gran Hermano

Take it to humanities or politics... someone there might care

or pop over to arts and crafts, they'll help you make a placard.

I don't visit After Hours to receive a lecture.

Wait..

The E-Who?

Bros123

Gran Hermano wrote: »

Take it to humanities or politics... someone there might care

or pop over to arts and crafts, they'll help you make a placard.

I don't visit After Hours to receive a lecture.

No one was lecturing.In the time it took to be a smart arse you could have sent an email.
People like yourself are the reason governments get away with crap like this.ie:"someone there might care"

Terry

Moved from AH.

dame

There have been a few more useful contact details added to the thread in Television forum (linked from OP here).

hi-fi

Things don't change when nobody tries to change them. Anything that can raise awareness about the suffering of these kids has to be a good thing.

E-mail TD's, MEP's and the Bulgarian embassy-it will take less than 5 mins.

dame

And email RTE to ask them to show the documentary on Irish television during a prime evening viewing time.

dame

For all you people here with 30 seconds to spare, here's a very simple bit of text that you can copy and paste in an email to RTE:

RTE,

I would like to suggest that the "Bulgaria's Forgotten Children" documentary (liked below) is shown on RTE television soon during a prime time. The issue would also make a good investigation for an Irish documentary team. Mogilino is only one of these institutions. RTE could do a follow-up investigation or a separate investigation on a different Bulgarian childrens' social care home. A contrast between the current state of Romanian orphanages (improvements were a condition of entry to EU) and the conditions in Bulgarian orphanages (no conditions imposed by EU), would also make a very interesting, but harrowing, documentary.

Here is the link to the BBC documentary: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...arch&plindex=0


Regards,
YOUR NAME

That is the text of the email I sent to RTE. You can change the text if you like, add or subtract whatever you like from it, or you can siply cut and paste it and send it as your own to info@rte.ie

Pester power can and does give results.

The more people see this documentary, the more ashamed Bulgaria and Europe will get. If nobody knows what's going on and nobody says it's wrong, then nothing will be done to improve the situation.

wil

This is being repeated on BBC4 right now.
If you want an idea of what the complete opposite to living a happy life is, then this is it.
An appalling reality in our EU that should not be condoned by silence.