The Samaritans, Stara Zagora (Стара Загора)

The Samaritans (no connection to the English Samaritan group), run a shelter in the city for street children and by the summer hope to have opened a home for street children where they can offer children a stable home environment, a place to wash, sleep, and be given basic schooling. When the volunteers visit, it is possible they will stay in the large classroom at the top of the house, where there are shower facilities.

Many of the children they help are of Roma origin and while we were staying in Stara Zagora, we visited the Roma Quarter, a settlement isolated from and overlooking the main town from the hill side. This Quarter has a population of around 22-25,000 people, 60% are under 18yrs. Only 10% of the 12,000 children go to the only 2 schools that serve the area. The Roma were confined to these areas both by their own insular tradition and through the encouragement of the communist government who sought to isolate them. They live in great poverty, the area is littered with refuse dumps and many stray dogs.

The area is a mostly ‘Shanty’ settlement: few houses have running water and are modest constructions: mostly one or two rooms built around a small stove. One room we went into was approximately 4×4 metres and housed 10 adults and 6 children. We met four of its occupants, a man who had been confined to his bed by a broken leg and his three children. The mattresses of the other occupants were rolled up in the corners of the room. There is a culture of begging among the Roma into which children are born and often forced, many are threatened with physical violence if they don’t bring home a certain income for their parents. As a result there are a great number of street children in cities with high Roma population. Problems among these children include glue sniffing and malnourishment, they are poorly educated and easily fall into crime. The Samaritans group works with these children to improve their chances in life.The activities the Samaritans encourage are ones which the Roma can organise themselves using the minimum of equipment and maximum initiative. Simplicity is important as the children may never have experienced this sort of stimulation before (while we were there, one of the Samaritans was teaching the children to count by drawing numbers with a stick in the mud). The children are incredibly responsive as they are generally bored and starved of attention. Volunteers would have the opportunity to take some children on camps or trips to the local park (a large natural park, with woodland areas and wide open spaces). If volunteers could draw on their own experiences, the sort of outward-bound activities organised by the Scout and Guide movement would be ideal for this environment!

Trip Reports:

Summer 2005 Summer 2002 (Group 1) Summer 2002 (Group 2) Easter 2002 Summer 2001

Last updated: March 2nd, 2008