Sunshine and Sorrow on Sector Six

How the institution is set up..

The institute is made up of 6 sectors that are spread out across different floors of the institute, sector one through to four being split up between babies upto a year old, 1 -2 year olds, 3 year olds and 4 year olds. 
Sector 6 is made up of children that have either been born with severe medical problems or have been so heavily affected by institutionalization that they are now in an extreme position of physical and mental dysfunction.
Then you have Chronically ill, a sector that may as well have be named ' The dying rooms' because the children are classed as never being able to get better. 
One child had a severe case of epilepsy and another a severe case of her skin peeling.. whilst i'm sure there is depth to there issues, do they sound like chronicle diseases to you?  

What it looks like...

If you imagine the sectors to be set out like a maternity unit with every room being windowed. 
So you have a corridor and one side is where all the childrens rooms and the playrooms are, because each room is windowed you can just see through into room upon room throughout the sector.. and the other side of the corridor will be where the carers offices and the kitchens are etc.

The first thing that hits you is the difference in each parts of the building, when you walk in there is a guy that 'mans' the door. Which really means he sits behind a school like desk on an old chair reading a magazine. The lift is something i have never seen, the door is an actual door that opens into a wooden box that is the lift.. that works most of the time but tends to stop imbetween floors.
Some sectors are beautifully painted with cartoons and clean tiled floors where as others are something out of an old, abandoned 1980's hospital that looks like it needs a serious lick of paint.
I'm not sure what determined which floor or should i say room getst a make over, but it was like a flash of different centuries thrown into one building.

Daily routine..

The way that the week worked in terms of daily routine i think varied from what other volunteers had experienced. With there only being two of us ( there has been up to 20 volunteers at one time) joined with the fact that relations with the institute director weren't fantastic meant that flexibility and freedom for us was going to be limited.
So everyday we would meet Grigor at the flat and walked to the institute, a great opportunity to brief the day ahead and talk about all things institutions and Bulgarian history with Grigor.

We would enter the mystery maze that is the walk to Grigors office on the bottom floor, down through the first lift.. through a sector, down in another lift, along some stairs and there we are.
Going anywhere alone in the institute is always a brave move because it is such a huge building with such an illogical layout that you would literally never find your way back!

Once we had dropped our stuff off you always found yourself in the playroom next to the office where children from all sectors were taken for their quality time with the baba's, in here there are play houses, mats, a ball pit and some toys for the kids to amuse themselves with.
You could spend hours in here without even realizing, doing intensive interaction with kids from sector 6, playing with babies from sector 1 or just talking to Grigor about particular children's issues or how far they have come since having there Baba.
You had to remind yourself that these kids are finally getting there one on one time and there are kids upstairs rocking in cots that need you.

It's very difficult to walk through any of the institute and not just stop and play, cuddle or in someway interact with children, you could spend your whole day walking somewhere and end up just stopping at windows, in hallways or even in lifts just giving them love.

You become familiar with the children whose beds are closest to the windows on the route you have to take to Grigors office, one of them being Daniel.
He was on sector 2, despite the fact he was 7 he looked around 2 years old but without the normal puppy fat a child of that age would have. 
Daniel was very skinny, borderline malnourished, he almost appeared to have such long arms and legs. I guess bones without any muscle or weight on them they will always appear longer.

He would always be stood up in his bed with that face you have when you have just woken up and someone turned the lights on - totally bewildered.
Vibrating spit through his lips and looking at his hand as if it was something had never ever seen before - typical institutionalized behavior 
As soon as he saw you this smile would appear and take up every inch of his little face, you would go through and coo over him. Where he would just look at you in complete awe and almost disbelief, concentrating on any action you made or face you pulled.

Of all the times i passed that window on the first few days i always felt like i never saw Daniel out of his bed, not even to be locked in a room with all the other kids.
You almost make a mental note that when you come onto that particular sector you make sure you come and get him, it is very easy with the large numbers on sectors to get caught up with the children that they initially give you and forget that there are still more lying in beds down a hallway.

Choosing between children..

Everyday Grigor would ask us which sectors we would like to divide our time between for the day. Silly as it sounds it's such an emotionally charged question - How do you choose which kids most need you? there are 160 of them and two of you to go around.

Especially as Once you have met the children on a sector their faces are etched into your brain, even though you knew all these children were there, they are just a statistic up until that moment.

So you obviously have a pull towards the ones you have been to already because now you know that they are there, you have seen them, you know exactly what those children are doing when you aren't there. 

Naturally it feels wrong to not go back and stop that from happening, but the other half of you knows there are floors more of children that need you.
A very unfamiliar and difficult thought process to adopt and try to rationalize.

The first few days we split our time between sector 2,3 and 6, Sector 6 is an experience that still echoes through me..

Sector 6

Sector 6 to me felt like an outer body experience, as i said before it's where children are
 kept that are born with medical problems or have been so heavily affected by institutionalization that they are now in a severe state of mental and physical dysfunction.

You walk onto this sector where the first thing that hits you is the smell of stale uncleaned teeth, where there are roughly 30 children laying in beds totally silent.. the only thing that you can hear is the constant grinding of the there teeth. 
Something that echos around the whole of the institute, a noise that makes me quiver just thinking about it. 
Can you imagine walking into a room, a floor or even a house that had 30 wide awake children under 15 and not a single sound?

The staff on this sector are amongst the most unwelcoming in the institute, not even pretending to care about the children while you are there.
From propping up feeding bottles into childrens mouths that are unable to move,that end up choking and ultimately being sick on themselves to the children being left with food on their skin for so long that when you come to clean them their skin comes off with it.
These people that call themselves 'carers' do not believe or have any respect for human life within that building. 
It is incredible how quickly you adapt to this kind of behaviour, you would think that you would run around punching and screaming at these people all day long but you have to wisen up to the fact that it solves nothing. Whilst you are there you have to ignore this behavouir and step in where you can and choose your battles wisely. Don't spend a second of time being angry with them, spend it giving love and happiness to a child that has never experienced it.

Of the first few rooms that occupy sector 6 there are 3 babies that have hydrocephalus, which is a buildup of fluid inside the skull that leads to brain swelling. Usually known in the UK as  "water on the brain."

There are different variations of hydrocephalus, what i witnessed was exactly like the below..



Seeing a childs face and body lost in a head that is around 3 times the size of your own is like someone playing a sick joke with your mind. 
Like everything here this is avoidable and unnecessary - it is a choice to let children exist and die this way. 

I am told that in the UK hydrocephalus is something that you can be born with but is easily dealt with and managed at birth.
As i understand it in Bulgaria if you don't have the means to pay for this procedure you live and die by it just as quickly.
Water keeps flooding your head and suffocates your brain until eventually you pass away.

The idea of this happening for no reason just mind boggles me...


The other children in the first few rooms are tiny little things, ranging from 1 year olds through to kids that are around 12-15. There size resembling those of a 4 to 7 year old.
All laid in positions that there bodies are now almost molded into, it varies but many are hunched over to the side like you are when you wake up in the morning - curled over into a ball.
There bodies have stiffened to this position through lack of movement from birth amongst what i would imagine is there muscle memory having no idea how to move anymore.

Before the Baba's came the interaction they received was merely a poor form of physical contact, a carer coming and feeding them or changing there nappy a few times a day. 
Then nothing. hours, days, weeks and years just laid in the same position in the same cot in the same room.
Now with many children having Baba's they have 5 hours of intensive interaction, massage to try and work on improving as much as possible in the time they have everyday. Something that with consistency can literally change this childs quality of life forever.
  You can almost sense exactly who the ones are that have Baba's, they respond to you with a smile, body movement or through speech - something that isn't heard of throughout the building. Whereas others just lie still looking at you, with no sign of life other then them moving there eyes and blinking occasionally.

All the children aren't fortunate to have been allocated Babas yet through lack of funding - something i hope to change with my fundraising projects this year.

Sunshine peering into Sector 6

The beam of gorgeous sunlight in Sector six was Maria ,we first met her when the Baba's were throwing her a birthday party on our first day.
From the moment you walked in she beamed at you with these huge brown eyes, eyes that were actually filled with life.
Instantly she was very alert and aware that the other children in the room were actually people not possessions, something that might sound insane yet she was the only child that i came across that understood this.

Maria's eyes darted around the room, her trying to see how she could walk over to you... she was the size of 6 year old ( despite that being half her age) and although able bodied and very well developed she couldn't walk un assisted.
I think this was more due to the fact that she has never practiced to so has developed a fear of it, grabbing onto all things around her so she can make her way to you.

As soon as she was with Ruth and i she threw her arms up and down continuously shouting  Maria go weeeeeeeeeeeeee - kaka? kaka? Maria go weeeeeeeee'

Kaka is sister in Bulgarian and how you are introduced to all the kids, Kaka Helen, she had clearly been thrown up and down in the air by volunteers and now mimics the noise and actions the whole time you are with her just laughing away to herself.
She is just the biggest drop of sunlight you could imagine, to see a little girl like her actually radiate such happiness and be so aware was incredible in such a lifeless place.

When you saw Maria around the institute you knew she was favored by staff, she was always taken on meal rounds and laundry runs so not confined to her cot all day. With her ability to actually communicate with you, either by nodding or shaking her head, pointing at things or laughing away it was easy for them to integrate her.
You always had a sense of relief that she was going to be ok, but when you would wonder onto sector six through all the rooms of such neglect you would get to the end and see her through the window in her cot with her little doll. A reminder that she was still a institutionalized little girl. 
As soon as she saw you she was grinning and pointing for you to come through and weeee her up and down, i would play hide and seek with her through the window or go in and tickle her...ah that smile just fills me with such joy!

On leaving the sector one day Grigor and i were chatting about her, he pointed out that Maria hasn't always been like that, only a matter of months ago was she a screaming, self harming irrational little girl giving off all the institutionalization behaviors - it is purely through her Baba and volunteers that she has developed into somewhat a normal little girl.
To actually witness what this contact can really do is astounding - it reminds you that you can't give up on them, children have the power to amaze you no matter what terror they have been through. Something that i will keep with me on my journey to raise more funds and attract as many volunteers as possible whilst the problem is still being reformed.


My next move was to Sector 2, a sector that i have never felt more purposeful, wanted or given such an unconditional amount of love.

Thank you so much for reading... 

Hells x