Parishioners Help Project Romania

Date: 30 August 2007

Project Romania Chard is a registered charity operated by Chard Churches Together. Two members of the local Catholic congregation at English Marytrs are involved - Bill Love (Chairman) and Stephen Zenda (Administrator) - and they have just returned from a visit to Romania.

Our thanks to Stephen and Bill for the following report.

Introduction
Our recent visit to Romania was a memorable one. Project Romania has been working in five of the villages in the commune, and we visited people in the main village of Seica Mare, also Calvasser, Boarta, and Buia.

Many children with differing needs have received financial support from families in the UK, from church backgrounds throughout the community at large. Over the years donations from the churches and individuals have transformed lives of many families in Romania. In the more remote village of Buia funds have been used to rebuild and equip an old school, and provide piped water for the totally new toilet facilities turning it into a community centre – The Rainbow Centre of Hope. The centre is used daily and children from disadvantaged homes come each afternoon to do their homework in the warm friendly environment with encouragement from a local teacher. Community functions have been held there, like the induction of the new priest, and the doctor uses it weekly for a surgery, as her hut is so unsuitable. In Seica Mare the Project has paid for water to be piped into the Primary School, which now boasts one main tap. None of the other eight schools have water.

A lot of credit for the success of project Romania to date goes to Florin Benghea (the project manager), all the UK trustees, the patron Graham Watson and members of the community in Romania for their efforts.

Our challenges
Our biggest challenge today is to address the much broader community needs, in addition to continuing support for families and individuals. Ideally we need a comprehensive approach to development which will, over the four or five years, address these community needs and build sustainable livelihoods.

During our visit we saw the need in several main areas: families, sick children, and schools. We also became aware of opportunities for small scale businesses.

The challenge is:
to train people in the community to meet these needs
to set up local projects in the commune and monitor them
to build up the potential for fund raising in the UK in order to do the above

Our visits
The Rainbow Centre of Hope in Buia.
Renovations of the centre are almost complete – we made some suggestions to improve the privacy of showers in the toilet areas.

To make more economic use of the building the Romanians would like to use the well appointed kitchen to start a cheese making project. However, there are certain obstacles to overcome, regarding ‘multi use’ of the Centre, but we have started to consider how and where we could start this and other organic projects. A dairy and cheese making room could be built at the top of the garden, with possibly a room to deal with local honey, much of which is currently fed to pigs through lack of marketing skills. The international charity Bees Abroad will help with this.

There is space in the garden immediately behind the Centre which could be used to build Guest chalets and/or dormitories to enable the Centre to be used for field study weekends and summer camps for city children.

The Centre, and 60 households in the village, now all enjoy a reliable source of clean water from springs in the hills, via a large tank constructed by villagers this year, paid for in part by Project Romania.

The gipsy area at Buia
We met several young families who live in very poor conditions and depend on handouts. They have no regular source of income or land to produce food.

Ada and Denisa are two of the children there who have benefited from the Bread4Buia programme at school and enjoyed holiday clubs run by the Project.

We met Ioana Veltan there, a poor frail little girl of 12 who was operated on in January for a brain tumour and now has to go to hospital every other week for chemotherapy. She needs sponsorship for this as the hospital is three hours away and she has to stay a week at a time and find her own food.

Other visits
Families
Traditionally many families have small amounts of land which they till, and some animals to tend. This keeps them occupied but does not bring in any significant income. Some crops are poorly managed and the villagers might benefit from information/training on how to utilize their natural resources, and so boost production levels. This could be linked to an organic farming project. A visit to a villager, who had spent eight years in Italy and learnt his expertise there, proved that with an investment of around 5000 Euros a poly tunnel 64 metres x 16 metres could be constructed. This, if well managed, could produce an income of 500 Euros a week as there is a market for organic vegetables with an Eco Society in Sibiu 24 km away. Such enterprise would radically change the lives of many poorer families.

Visits to five families revealed different levels of need especially in families with children under the age of ten.

Raluca Stoica is a five year old child supported by the Project Romania family sponsorship scheme, has had surgery to her right eye to prevent her losing her sight (her left eye is blind). Her mother, Marcela, is poor but hard working and has built her own one roomed house single-handedly. She needs help to buy livestock to supplement her income.

Anca Armie, a two year old, had a large protruding strawberry mark removed from her forehead, and her mother is delighted. The operation was paid for by the Project but the family does not need further financial help.

Ana Visa, at 76, is confined to a chair in her kitchen as she can hardly move. Her legs are large and swollen and she suffers from elephantiasis. She gets some help from her family but needs financial from the Health Seica programme for medication.

Maria Floca, aged four, also has a large strawberry mark covering the left side of her face and hasto be taken to Bucharest by train every month for laser treatment. She needs sponsorship to cover the next nine months.

Bianca Gherghinoaica is a lovely 15 year old girl, who longs to study languages but is gradually becoming completely deaf, due to a damaged auditory nerve. Her doctor has said that she might be able to get help in the UK – but how do we get her here and who would help?

Schools
The General School, although situated in the heart of the village does not have any water for general use or for the toilets which are deep drop and pose a health hazard. A small grant for a bore hole to provide water could bring a lot of changes to the school.

Generally
To relax a little, in the 37 degrees celcius, we visited Petis, a remote semi-deserted village in idyllic countryside, traveling there by horse and cart. On the penultimate day we saw the beautifully restored city of medieval city of Sibiu, the Capital of Culture for Europe 2007.

Back at the General School
On the last day of our visit Gina, the manager’s wife, organized her children to show us their traditional dancing, and 30 children came in their holidays and danced and played recorders brilliantly for us. We need to find ways of supporting the children to come to the UK on a cultural exchange.

Final families
We visited Marius Roman, a child of eight with Down’s syndrome. His family is grateful for the help they receive from Family sponsorship, and delighted that he is doing well at the special school in Sibiu. His sister and cousins are also doing well.

We also met his uncle, Cornel Fratila, in his wheel chair. Cornel lost both his legs whilst helping a small child onto a train in 2000, and, despite prostheses provided by the Project, has not been motivated to work, and shown little interest in suggestions of income generating projects. Florin will try again to find some craft for him. He needs to be given more mobility, and we are looking for sponsorship from UK for a hand driven car.

A big “thank you”
Thank you for your donations, your support and your prayers. We hope that this report will give you some idea of the good that has been done and the good that remains to be done. It is a wonderful ecumenical project to a country where most people are Orthodox or Greek Catholic having escaped Communism. Please continue to help them in their poverty.

Bill and Stephen would be delighted to provide you with information and gift-aid forms. If your friends do not come to Mass in our parish or attend other churches in Chard, please tell them about our office at Project Romania Office, 42 Victoria Avenue, Chard TA20 1HE or call on 01460 66793.
Useful URL : http://www.projectromaniachard.org.uk