Travel: Everywhere: Travel_046

A little girl sucks a lollipop under the hungry gaze of a little friend at the Dom Maika i Dete (Home for Mother and Child) adoption home in Vidin, Bulgaria on August 31, 2008.Children for adoption in Vidin, Bulgaria, live here. The home's director, Maria Rangelova, describes that two decades ago, the home carried more than double the children, who were mostly given away because they were born out of wedlock. While the number of children has decreasted from about 180 to 80 from waning birth rates and shifting cultural perceptions of birth outside of marriage, there remain many kids in need of adoption. Now, she says, most parents who give their children away do so because of financial want -- one that robs them of the ability to support their kids, or leaves them unable to cure an illness that has incapacitated them as caregivers. The home often struggles to provide an adequate amount of toys, snacks and personnel necessary for the children's caregiving.

A little girl sucks a lollipop under the hungry gaze of a little friend at the Dom Maika i Dete (Home for Mother and Child) adoption home in Vidin, Bulgaria on August 31, 2008.

Children for adoption in Vidin, Bulgaria, live here. The home's director, Maria Rangelova, describes that two decades ago, the home carried more than double the children, who were mostly given away because they were born out of wedlock. While the number of children has decreasted from about 180 to 80 from waning birth rates and shifting cultural perceptions of birth outside of marriage, there remain many kids in need of adoption. Now, she says, most parents who give their children away do so because of financial want -- one that robs them of the ability to support their kids, or leaves them unable to cure an illness that has incapacitated them as caregivers. The home often struggles to provide an adequate amount of toys, snacks and personnel necessary for the children's caregiving.