Street Kids

families like this have little hope for the future

The term 'street kid' was very popular a few years back, before we came to Romania to work with such children. In the 90's in some quarters it became almost the fashionable thing to do ... to care about 'street kids'. Sadly, like all fashions, this one has faded, giving way to other 'fashions' in social concern, leaving todays 'street kids' sadly neglected.

There are different 'varieties' of street child - there are what we sometimes refer to as the 'full time' street children - children and young people who live intirely on the streets, never going 'home' and having no links with parents or other family members. Then there are the seasonal street children who live on the streets during the warmer seasons but in the harsh Romanian winters return to the place some might call 'home'. Thirdly, there are the children and young people who spend most of their time on the streets, begging, selling, prostituting but at night return to their 'homes'. 

Calman grew up in an orphanage and then on the streets

Most of our full time street children and young people are now older, having grown up on the streets of Arad. Sadly several have already died on the streets of Arad and others may probably follow them. For those who are now over 18, which includes all those who were already on the streets when we started working with them in the Millennium year, life has been harsh. Now that they are no longer children, no longer cute or sweet, life is even harsher. Who is interested in helping a 20 something former street kid who has no physical attraction and whose behaviour often repels rather than attracts? What can we offer to our older street children, for somewhere deep inside, most of them are still children, they never grew up, ever developed, never matured. Often all we can offer is unconditional love and acceptance, a warm shower and a hot meal.

The 'Secret Garden' community centre

For the children who are still physically children, we offer the same love and acceptance but we also emphasise education. When our work began we had no 'Secret Garden' to which the street children could come, no safe place for them to spend their days, no warm and welcoming space in which to play and learn. Now we are blessed with such a place and we have hope for the future of our children. 

We named the 'Secret Garden' community centre after the children's novel of the same name in which an orphan girl and a disabled boy find new life in a hidden garden. In our Secret Garden we offer basic education to children and adults alike and we work hard to try and integrate children into kindergarten or school wheverer possible. We encourage parents and grandparents to come too so that we can build up relationships with them offering practical help and advice along with a cup of tea or coffee and a hot meal with their children. 

We believe that we have already helped some children to not become 'full time' street kids but we want more for them than just not being on the streets, we want them to have loving families, homes, enough food to eat, an education and most of all to know that they are valuable and precious.

A Child's Dream

Optical laboratory (or glasses workshop!)

Two (or was it three?) years ago we were in the process of making a room for the glasses making equipment. Before the room was ready the owner of the previous workshop died suddenly and his family wished to sell the house immediately. To cut a long story short the equipment, frames and lenses were all quickly brought to us and the workshop set up temporarily! 

Our UK partner, Dave Bennet has sent new equipment and a new stock of frames and lenses which arrived on Friday. Kenneth decided the workshop must be finished this time, so he emptied it, dismantled all the shelving and then worked like a slave all last week. He finished plastering the room, sanded the walls and painted them. Then he put in laminate flooring, window sills and finally doors and door frames. Now he just has to build up all the shelving again and arrange everything ...

Hopefully we'll soon be back into periodic vision screening and providing free or cheap glasses for poor people.

Poverty and Bureaucracy

Life for those on a low income is extremely difficult in Romania. Many families are trying to survive on as little as 60 euros a month and we get tired of people from the West telling us that ' it's all right for them because things are cheaper here'! We need to be clear on something - 'things' are not cheaper here! Luxury 'things' like hotel rooms, meals in restaurants, alcohol, ice cream are cheaper, it's true - of course the very ' things' that foreign visitors can and do buy ... But the basic daily necessities of life are not cheaper here. To give just one example, milk is more expensive in Romania than in the UK! Generally the cost of living is at an EU level while salaries and benefits are not. 

Added to this general hardship faced by the majority of the population, many of the families with whom we work have little or no education. They gave difficulty in finding a job because even most unqualified work requires a basic level of education - how do you stock supermarket shelves if you cant read the labels?

State benefits and pensions for the elderly our disabled exist but they are woefully inadequate and difficult to access due to the bureaucracy left over from the Communist regime. If you have little or no education you simply can't complete all the various forms required. It quite literally is a bureaucratic nightmare!  

One of the many services we offer for our families is help with paperwork. It might only give a family a few extra euros but it makes a difference. There is enough work for a full time member of staff just advising and helping with various applications - help with school requisitions, winter wood assistance, social canteen meals - but of course we don't have a member of staff to do this. Most of it currently falls to our volunteer, Mari as we are foreigners and struggle to understand the complicated forms and are scared of getting it wrong and causing someone to miss out.

We need more space!

For some time now we have been thinking that we need extra space in order to carry out all our activities at the Secret Garden. We often have two very different programmes (or more) going on at the same time and it's not easy when one of the activity rooms is accessed through the other. The afternoons are the worst though when we have our programme with the young people from the streets and also a homework club with children from 'disadvantaged' families. 

The apartment / house next door has just come on the market, it is fully renovated to a high standard and has 200 square metres of useable space. After an initial discussion with the owner we have been offered the property at 95,000 euros with payment over 12 months or possibly even more.

Our need is obvious in order to extend our educational programmes, but our financial situation is always pressing ... so for now, we are waiting and praying!

Computer time!

Every day the children and young people take turns to use the computers! As young as three years old they're getting a chance they would otherwise never have had - to learn IT skills that will help them in the future. After a little school work and some arts and crafts, there's always a chorus of 'please can I have a go on the computer?' If we had another five computers they'd still all be booked up!

Uncle Bill to the rescue!

Ani will miss Beeeeeell when he leaves!

finally ... the dining room shelves we've wanted for four years!

Maintenance manager / official photographer ... is there no end to his talents?

PRYDE team at the Secret Garden (Pennyburn Regeneration Youth Development Enterprise)

We were privileged to have a community group from Ayrshire in Scotland with us for the past few days. They were a well motivated, hard working group who were a pleasure to work with! Jobs like clearing out the garage, which would frighten lesser mortals were tackled with enthusiasm and good humour ... Activities with children were fun, educational and very entertaining! Thanks so much Theresa and your excellent team, we enjoyed having you with us and we hope that you'll be back!

children and mums were delighted to paint on porcelain plates

captive audience at one of the village schools

making windchimes and sun catchers

making windmills

Theresa demonstrating how the sun catchers work

concentrating hard

''look, it catches the sun!''

re-attaching the chimes

Kalman, the street boy who had his throat cut a couple of months ago ... now fully recovered,
except that he can only speak in whispers and proudly holding his own hand painted mug!

Marius painting a mug for his girlfriend, Cristina

hidden artistic talent

Annual NGO fair

Our stand at this year's charity fair

Kenneth with Ramona from the council's department for NGO relations

A Member of Parliament came to visit us

Fridge magnets and soft toys going cheap!

All packed up until next year!

Friends from the sports club for young people with disabilities

Our Red Cross Colleagues

Hacking and viruses ... sigh!

Our communication with the outside world has been seriously affected by two major technical hitches! Our Gmail accounts were shut down due to a hacking attempt from the Ukraine. This meant that we lost emails, we don't know how many we didn't receive or how many others didn't receive ... so it is hard to remedy until people contact us and let us know (usually upset because they haven't received a reply).

The second problem is that following the Gmail episode our website was compromised due to a virus - we have no idea how and are seeking to remedy the situation, but this means that our initial contact email addresses are also out of action ie info@achildsdream.co.uk and funding@achildsdream.co.uk 

We offer our sincere apologies to anyone affected by these issues. In the meantime, our daily news can be accessed via our Facebook page - you don't have to be on Facebook to see all our news and photos  https://www.facebook.com/visdecopilarad

TV stars ... Not!

Recently I (Kathryn) had two TV interviews on West TV and yesterday was on TV Arad along with Philip and some volunteers from a local organisation ' Ofensiva Tinerilor' (Youth Offensive). It's a bit scary but we felt it was well worth it for the people with whom we work. It gave us a chance to speak about our work and future dreams and plans as well as generally to say some positive things about Romania and Romanians! We love Romania and her people and hate the negative image created by certain groups. 

Visiting around Scotland

Just two of the lovely people we had the privilege to get to know on our recent visit to the UK. Raj and his sister, Gurmel came to stay with our friends Gordon and Kirsteen Dutton while we were there and we had a great time getting to know them!

It's good to be back!

After all the traveling it was a relief to arrive back in Romania. As always on our return there is a lot to catch up with and at least one of our utilities cut off due to late payment - this time it was the phone, internet and tv ... well better that than water or electricity! It's good to see that activities at the Secret Garden have continued in our absence - we have a good team and they have worked well. It's so lovely to see the children again, we really miss them when we're away.

Annual trek across Europe

At the beginning of August Amy, Nina and I began the annual drive across Europe, Kenneth having flown over to Scotland ahead of us for heart and other medical check ups! It was the first time either Amy or I had done the drive without Kenneth's help, so we were a little nervous about it - though to be honest I think Kenneth was far more anxious for us than we were! He made us up a folder with all our travel arrangements beautifully organised ... with money for road taxes in the relevant currencies and even coins for toilet stops and two pound coins for the Dartford Tunnel in London!

We enjoyed the journey and had a lot of fun together ... Nina kept calling it 'our girls trip out'! After several stops along the way we arrived in Glasgow and are spending the time catching up with as many family and friends as possible and sharing all the news about our Work In Arad.It's wonderful to have so many positive aspects to report on and very little negative ... it hasn't always been that way, that's for sure! 

Amy and Nina in Ikea in Traun, Austria

Nina at the Formula 1 hotel in Dunkirk waiting to leave

The 'White cliffs of Dover'"

A girl needs her pearls when she's traveling!

Irish invasion!

For the whole of July we have Irish volunteers coming to the Secret Garden to do a variety of activities with the children - it's wonderful! We also have some of our new Romanian volunteers coming in, so all in all things are looking very good this summer!

Our volunteers get to have soooo much fun!

We have the most lovely group of LDS missionaries who come and help us out with practical work around the Secret Garden ... they do some of the horrible jobs and we really appreciate them ...

This is 'Smiley' because he's ALWAYS smiling!

"We just love cleaning bathrooms!"

Supervisor?

the bathrooms were due a spring clean!