I have known some of these children for years. I have witnessed not only how their arms and legs have grown, I have seen how their souls have grown. How did this happen?
I have been having friends amongst the ‘Hug me’ children for years. I have been following their development and this is why I know that ‘Hug me’ has been their chance.
Everything connected to children is in the world of miracles. Especially here and now. I will never forget how the children from Atelier “Hug me” completed the incomplete “Blind Vaisya” story. Most naturally way they “put together” her eyes in the only possible way, through love.
It is a paradox that the biggest and the worst societal shortcomings are not visible in the biggest pompous events, but in the tiniest, daily, almost anonymous facts, as in Atelier ‘Hug me’. Very few people have the mental strength to do what the team of ‘Hug me’ does – they interact daily with children from homes for children without parental care. And they interact with these “creatures” like one should with normal, healthy, happy human beings.
I have known the Atelier ‘Hug me’ mission from the very beginning and do support them with everything I can, because I am convinced that Milena Neyova and Kalina Koleva, who created ‘Hug me’, as well as all the other volunteers, amongst them well-known actors, painters, intellectuals, do something unique and endlessly useful for the socialisation of children without parental care.
Atelier ‘Hug me’ is a place where children without parental care meet the limitless art world. There they discover the magic and the pleasure to express themselves by drawing, or by performing theatre plays, or by making crafts angels, or by watching cinema and discussing it, or by illustrating fairy tales, or by doing many other things which only the imagination can create.
I joined Atelier ‘Hug me’ to lead a course in drawing comic books. During a period of several months the children came up with their own stories, defined the characters, and organised the composition of each drawing.
Probably childhood has thousands names. Life gathers them imperceptibly and shapes everyone individually.
The destiny of abandoned children though is different. They often have only a first name because they don’t have a family.
Atelier “Hug me” is a crossroad. And as at every crossroad, people from different places meet each other and then continue on their way. From a first glance we see that the children are meeting adults, but children also meet other children, and adults meets other adults.
Have you tried to keep a child in your arms not just for a few minutes, nor for several hours only, but for years? And when this child isn’t yours? Milena Neyova and her team, that have been firmly standing next to her, have been doing exactly that.