In this Concordia story, Concordia Social Projects Board Member Father Markus Inama SJ tells of desperate children he met during a visit to Bulgaria: "Even now, when I close my eyes, I see these desperate children in the middle of the isolated loneliness of Bulgaria. Dara, Bojan and Luba. Emaciated, frightened and rejecting, with looks from which everything childlike seems to have disappeared forever. I met the three of them during my visit to the village of Malki Iskar. We suspected that there was an urgent need for a new Concordia social centre there. Just looking at the dilapidated dwellings without running water and without heating, I was deeply shocked. The people here live in hopeless poverty.
 

Only a few kilometres further, in the middle of the forest near Pripek, a group of children suddenly appeared, as if from nowhere. I was struck by lightning. They live all alone in a house that looks like a crumbling ruin. Nobody knows how the little ones live. "Have you eaten?" I ask Dara, the older girl. "Yes," she answers uncertainly. But her look suggests that she is very hungry. Before I can react, the children disappear into the thicket again. They are afraid of us strangers.
 

Later, in the village, I learn that the mother is often away for weeks at a time for the only source of income, the collection of herbs. So the siblings are mostly left to fend for themselves and have to fight for their survival every day. My heart is heavy when I think of the sad faces of these children. No child should live under such unimaginable conditions! And I see how urgently our social centre is needed in this desolate area! Without our help, Dara, Bojan and Luba would hardly survive the next winter.