ACTIONS: What actions have been
undertaken by your organization to promote a culture of peace and
nonviolence during the first half of the Decade?
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The following is excerpted from the report of Soroptimist Interntional. Click here for their full report.
The
Soroptimist Club of Bucharest was founded 1995. From the very
beginning, it aimed at helping the disadvantaged people in Bucharest.
This disadvantaged population, whose poverty increases daily,
bears the entire financial burden of a country developing towards
a functioning market-economy. Consequently access to education
decreases, despite efforts towards improvement undertaken by the
Romanian Government.
Our modest social projects, realized
through whatever funds we managed to raise, have succeeded in returning
hope to some extremely poor families. We have taken over certain
administrative costs acquired by a number of families due to be evicted
because of the debts accumulated. The club initiated a training
course for young women seeking employment, founded an art-therapy class
for children with minor mental disabilities, equipped two schools in
poor neighborhoods in Bucharest with furniture.
We tried to rescue and socially integrate a number of homeless children, etc.
I
should like to address this last project in more detail. The
existence in Bucharest of a large number of homeless children coming
from very poor problem families with alcoholic parents, is no secret.
In daily increasing numbers, they reject this way of life in
favor of the streets. These children are condemned to vagrancy
and are undoubtedly the victims of drugs and prostitution.
We,
therefore, decided to join the efforts of various other Bucharest NGOs,
( e.g. Save the Children Organization, Parada, etc.),
which strive to rescue some of these children. Following
the recommendation of Save The Children Organization, we assumed
responsibility for two homeless children "families". This means two
child couples, themselves the parents of 12 to 14 month old baby girls
who are condemned right from birth to live in the city's sewage system,
believing this way of life to be normal.
First of all,
the "families" had the opportunity of talking to two club members (a
psychologist and a legal expert). Apartments were rented for
them, they were offered clothes, powdered milk and diapers, and a
monthly food allowance. In the second phase they were found a
place to work.
Unfortunately, shortly after we started to
take care of them, on of the "families" disappeared from Bucharest.
Homeless children have no identification papers, so the "family"
remains untraceable.
The other couple, Florin and
Felicia, proved to be responsive to our efforts as well as
willing to change their social status, thus our support for the
three children continued, After two years of assistance,
the "family" let us know that they were able to support
themselves : they moved to a smaller town, where life was cheaper
than in Bucharest. At the same time, they asked us t take over
other homeless children that were more in need of our assistance. We
consider their social reintegration a success. At present we are
taking care of the Lepadu orphans, which we support economically,
educationally and morally. We intend to continue this project by
supporting young girls or "families", also homeless, as soon as we have
the necessary financial resources at our disposal
We have to
underline the fact that this success would not have been possible
without the support of the SI Club of Essen, Germany (Dr.Christiana
Haude) and of some wonderful people such as Anne-Marie and Caspar
Reinhart from Switzerland.
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