Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

Crossing Borders
In a summer day of 1939, 314 poor Sofia citizens signed a collective petition
to the city mayor. In the petition they insisted that the former municipality
social advisor for their residential district, Maria Karakanovska, be retained
in their residential district and not replaced by another female social advisor. 1
A delegation of thirty people came to the municipality to meet the head of
the municipality social services department. Some months later, in November
1939, more than 500 “extremely poor Sofia citizens” of the peripheral residential
district of Lozenetz in the Sofia municipality signed a collective petition once
again. The petition was signed by female and male citizens. They explained
that the municipality social advisor Maria Karakanovska had been working in
their residential district for five years. According to the petition:
(…) she fulfilled her service in the most responsible way. She worked in our residential
district from the early morning until the late evening in cold, mud and snow, wishing
to know us better and to understand our sufferings and needs. She cared like a mother
for everybody. Many times she was there until midnight, caring for someone who was
ill. She gave from her own insufficient funds five or ten lewa to poor families so they
could buy their bread. She loves our children and gives a mother’s care to them because
she is also a mother of small children and a nurse. She is a poor woman like us and she
lives with our sufferings and needs. 2
The people who signed the petition did not want a new municipality
social advisor for their residential district. According to their letter “(…) she
has hurt many poor families with her upsetting behaviour (…)”. 3
In the second petition in November 1939, which was signed after the
beginning of the war, the authors added that in uncertain war times “(...) we
should not need to worry about what happens to our families (...)”. 4
This case of these poor Sofia citizens and their petitions to the Sofia
municipality regarding the work of female social advisors indicates the importance
of the field of social services in the 1930s. This field was an important part of
1
State Archive – Sofia, F.1k, op.4, a.e.1106, l. 160-170.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
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