Nineteen years ago Bulgaria’s ambassador to London Ivan Stancioff set up a foundation to help children with special needs. He named it after a cousin of his, Karin who had cerebral palsy but had a big heart and was always thinking of her near and dear. And he turned his family home in the Marine Garden in Varna into Karin Dom (Karin’s home), where he brought together a small team of experts. With the help of colleagues from Great Britain, they study and apply cutting-edge therapeutic methods. Thanks to his charisma and strong motivation he brought together donors and supporters of his cause. Now, there are 150 families visiting Karin Dom with 50 professionals taking care of them; early intervention training is organized in 47 towns. Not long ago the foundation won the award “Together” for cooperation between businesses and NGOs.

“Now the centre offers services connected with therapy and rehabilitation for children at a very early age – from babies until the time they start going to school,” says the foundation’s executive director Mariana Nikolova. “We work with the parents who are shocked when they hear their child’s diagnosis. Our entire programme is aimed at providing support at the earliest age.”

Thanks to Karin Dom, many of the children are able to get integrated in school. One of them is Elena – a girl with cerebral palsy whom everyone at the foundation is proud of:

“We call her our PR agent because she speaks of Karin Dom with so much warmth and feeling. When she turned 16 her most cherished dream was to learn to waltz and to have Ivan Stancioff as her dancing partner. So, after many rehearsals, after falling down and getting up over and over again, the most beautiful present Mr. Stancioff received for his 80^th birthday was this dance, together with Elena. Now, after she had to undergo surgery in Germany once again, her ambition is to do German studies in Austria and to live an independent life, without being constantly accompanied by her mother,” says Mariana Nikolova.

As she puts it, there is one man that is behind it all. “He is our knight with a rucksack – because he climbed Olympus to raise money for Karin Dom, a man with a powerful charisma who has succeeded in bringing everyone together for a noble cause.”

People from the foundation say that not a single friend of  Ivan Stancioff’s has ever declined help. When he returned from his climb of Olympus and was all black and blue, at a meeting with a European commissioner, the former ambassador joked: “There may be other, more intelligent ways that the foundation and the state can do something for the children, instead of my going out of my way to put myself in harm’s way.”

“Of course that was his way of sending out a message in support of the families of the children, people the state is still in debt to,” says Mariana Nikolova and urges people to help and not feel sorry for families with special children. “Because many renowned names in the world have had problems, yet their names have gone down in history – Mozart, Beethoven, Einstein. And as one of our patrons Justin Boland, says, himself suffering from dyslexia – one never knows whether the next young Beethoven might not step inside Karin Dom.”

Ivan Stancioff is engaged in other activities as well – he is a “pillar” for the Bulgarian school in London – in the words of its headmistress Snezhina Mecheva.

“We are morally and emotionally committed to supporting his noble cause,” she says. “Around Christmas time every year we get Christmas cards and calendars from Karin Dom with pictures by the children there and we sell them. We have quite a few charity events for Karin Dom. At this year’s concert of the Bulgarian choir in London the children sold these cards and gave them away at the St. Valentine’s Day ball at the Bulgarian embassy. The children eagerly look forward to Christmas every year and always do their best to make the prettiest cards. This year we raised GBP 1,134.”

English version: Milena Daynova