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Dr. Jane Reports From Bulgaria (part II)

I met with the 22 students from Wildwood School (in LA) early on Sunday morning. God, are they ever gorgeous, cool, smart and full of desire to do good. I could have been with them all day.

I spoke to them about orphans...children at risk. I talked in great detail about the story of how these children are placed in institutions by birth mothers with no choices and no pre-natal care. I spoke of the daily misery for kids who have no one to love them...and that is the truth no matter how good we at WWO or anywhere else make it.

So the kids went off to Rille to the Monastery and then Mark, Kris, and I met with Assenia, Jivka, her son, Vladimir, and Kristian Katsoris who is the director of Milossardie. We figured out that we met in the early 90s in New York City. We were in Bulgaria together for the first time in 1997 when Milossardie unveiled their first Granny Program and I was invited to teach the psychologists, Jivka and Mitko Novkova how to do the Denver Developmental Screening Test.

We are replacing the Denver after all these years with the Pearson Bayley III which is a very sophisticated psychological/developmental test. WWO has permission to have it translated into Bulgarian in the next few months and then we will use this test to evaluate all our kids and give it to Bulgaria universally because they are using tests that are at least 60 years old. Dr. Topher Collier, neuropsychologist, and Dr. Missy Windsor were in London to be certified to train professionals to administer the Bayley lll in December 2008. They also were in Burgas to introduce Jivka and Vladimir to the Bayley lll in September 2008.

We signed an official MOU/contract with Milossardie on Sunday afternoon after a number of hours of talking about the Baba program from their point of view and our strategies to do other kinds of programming for the children (Jan 30, 2009 Bulgaria Strategic Planning session in New York) i.e. Bayley lll, Individualized Educational Plan, Toy Libraries, Pre-school, and Community building through social work outreach (currently being implemented for our children in Vietnam via the USAID PEPFAR NPI grant).

I have to tell you that I learned a lot. I realized the value of really being with people. You can skype and e-mail all you like, but sitting, eating, and traveling in a car many hours really seals the deal....and enriches the friendships which must be about trust.

Mark and Kris came to Bulgaria to learn about the programs and to get to know Assenia and Milossardie and finally and most importantly, they came to show that they are nice people who care about the partnership and the children we all are working for in all our countries. They were successful ambassadors and great supports for me. I couldn't ask for more gracious administrators and colleagues. WWO is in good hands.

I introduced them to other contacts who will be essential for the future programming as we become a fully licensed NGO in Bulgaria. WWO is licensed as an NGO in Vietnam and Ethiopia by the way.

On Monday, we drove 3 1/2 hours into the countryside to Veliko Tarnovo to see our newest Baba program and boy were we wowed....WWO has 20 Babas divided between two sites not far from one another....different ages in each building. There is the baby house (15 Babas) and then a slightly older child building (5 Babas).

Some of the Babas are well into their seventies with 30-40 years of experience in a variety of jobs: teacher nurse, book seller, librarian, builder, tailor, private child caretaker, orphanage staff person, etc.  Some had gray hair like me...very rare. I am picked out in Bulgaria all the time because of my gray hair....very funny!

What I love about opening new Baba programs is being there to sit with them all and hear them talk about their lives and why they love the work and especially about how they see the progress and are in awe of it. They talk like professionals. They own this work with pride and expertise.

This program opened two months ago and they all talked about how their child made amazing progress that they felt was due to their relationship and they are so right...stories about how the baby recognizes them when they arrive and how the little one waves or calls out Baba or even their name. And their eyes well up with so much emotion....I love when I can recognize that word...emotional said with a Bulgarian accent....and I learned the Bulgarian word for attachment which they use over and over again in their conversation. They are well-versed in early childhood development and are skilled enough to teach parents and students about how to care for children with attachment disorder.

We need an army of Babas...and we almost have that army. Within the next few months, WWO will have 100 Babas and 200 children in their care. This is something that you should all be proud of … this is big time for now. And the country is aware of WWO and Milossardie and that is important as well.

What was amazing at Veliko Tarnovo were the pedagogues....they were smart and eager and very dedicated. I have never met such idealistic and progressive teachers who want to learn more and do more. They were almost out of their seats with the discussion of the Toy Library.

The social worker at VT described her very sophisticated and elaborate work with parents from the community whose children are in VT because of many reasons.....neglect, abuse, and poverty. She wanted to know how we could help these parents take their children back...this made my almost lose it....she has such wonderful instincts and her knowledge base in social work theory was superb, and then of course her heart was big. I had no answers at all....but we spoke and the dialogue is beginning. We have so much to learn about Bulgarian communities and the Roma culture. Elena will be our teacher for sure here and she began this with Mark and Kris on Sunday night.

We met all 20 Babas and left very satisfied that Velko Tarnovo is a wonderful place for WWO and Milossardie. We drove home on those two lane roads not sleeping because I can never sleep with 140 km/hr driving and trucks whizzing by our little vehicle. 

Now, it’s back to the U.S., and more work to make sure we keep our promises.

Dr. Jane

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