My name is Antoaneta. I am 47 years old and I live in a town called Targovishte.

My husband and I have been living in Bulgaria permanently since 2006. Before that, I used to work in Greece because I wanted to support my son, Milen, in his education. However, he is now 27 years old and has taken his own path in life.

Throughout my whole life I have wanted to take care of children. The desire to give love and protection to kids to whom fate was not as generous and kind to as to myself, is deeply encoded in my heart. I had an amazing childhood but there was a period of time during which I was away from my parents. Maybe this gave me the motivation to ensure that children to grow up without feeling any lack of safety and protection.

During that time foster care was not talked about in society, so I filed for adoption. After this, I had to visit orphanages. I will never forget the things I saw there. I would adopt all the children now if I could. In the orphanages I used to see terrifying images of neglect and violence. The children wanted me to take them with me everywhere I went. I will never forget attending a meal at an orphanage once. The women who were taking care of the children poured the soup in the metal pans and demanded “Drink the soup!”. At that time the children raised the plates all together and drank the soup. They didn’t even use spoons because time was too precious to be wasted on eating. The children guarded their bread carefully and fought anyone who tried to take it. Their eyes were like the eyes of small predators – a moment of carelessness, and one could stay hungry for a long time. What is more, in the orphanages I could see how nobody talked to the babies and small children. They were silently lifted and placed back in the beds, just like objects. The women used to change the children mechanically and passed them to one another with emotionless faces. Just like packages. They often punished them. The ones who could walk were made to sit on their chairs, and if they wanted to walk or run, the educators used to punish and beat them.

I became a foster parent by coincidence. I worked as an accountant in social services. A foster mother from the town used to come to the office regularly for some payments. I started to partakein her worries and problems. Then I went to my boss and asked him if I could become a foster parent. Well, I did. I am the only parent in Targovishte who takes care of other people’s children without being paid for it.

Galya is the girl I care for and she is an amazing child. She is 5 years old now. When they showed her to me I saw a sad and suffering human being. And at that time I felt her helplessness. I got close to her and whispered in her ear: “I am your mother and I have been looking for you for a long time.”

I wanted to save her from the orphanage and she felt it. We used to meet for more than two weeks and I would bring different treats for her. Once time I brought her favorite corn sticks and asked her to give me some. She broke her stick into two pieces and gave me one of them even though she had a full bag. I have never seen a child that hungry. When we took her for the weekend, before she came to my home, she would continue to eat while there was food on the table. However, I knew that this wasn’t because of the hunger, but because there was somebody on the table with her while she was eating. After she came to live with us, she used to say “oko,oko” after we had lunch or dinner and after a long period of time me and my husband realized that she actually was actually saying “more, more”.

During the Christmas holidays, the baby, who I was waiting to adopt before I became a foster parent, came to our house. During the first days the baby was a serious challenge for Galya. She acted like she was sick. I was really worried about her because I didn’t expect it – we used to go together to the orphanage to see the baby and discussed that he was going to be with us soon. Galya didn’t eat anything for 5 days. After this she got over the appearance of the little one and now she is happy.

Sometimes I wonder how hard your life needs to be to leave your child. Galya is a beautiful kid – blond with blue eyes. Whenever she feels that you trust and love her, she repays you with a lot of love and affection.

Now I am the happiest mother in the world because I have a grown up son, a baby and an amazing foster child. However, there is still a lot of love in me that I can give to a child in difficult circumstances.

Source: UNICEF