The Lakatnik “Social Care” Home for Women

Slow and steady development and improvement of the material surroundings is still first priority for Lakatnik After the successful start of operations of the new sewage plant, it was hoped that the local government would come up with some offer of helpful coperation regarding the building of the new toilet and shower block. But no! That means that we now have to start thinking in terms of raising all the funds for this building and the architects are looking at cost estimates with this in view.

On the basic institutional structural and social work front, in common with others, we have come to the conclusion that the necessary change of consciousness and of attitude on all levels, from government to private individuals, is going to take something like generations rather than years or even decades. It therefore seems plausible and sensible to think in terms of a quantum leap rather than small steps. One possible scenario would be something like this...

-Improve material surroundings in Lakatnik with the long term aim of completely separate facilities for the women with learning difficulties as opposed to those diagnosed as mentally ill and work on reducing the intake of the mentally ill.

-Since the women mostly come from Sofia and the surrounding region, focus on establishing two basic types of living situations in Sofia and/or outskirts with nearby city public transport services. The first type would be a long-term therapy oriented house for mentally ill women.The other type is conceived as a caring environment, with living-in social workers, who incidentally could well be former users with basic training.