Tuesday
December 16th
The
day started with a visit to Speranta Familiei who work with families and needy
children – name means Hope for the Family. They have had to reduce their staff
and projects because of shortage of funds and there are now only 2 of them
working there. They wanted to take us to see their “Project Naomi” which I
thought was a hostel for single mothers where they could stay for a year while
they got themselves sorted out, but it has evolved and now offers support for
approximately six months to single parents living in the community – most
seemed to be living with family.
We
went to visit 4 different families - Raul and his colleague told us it was a
little uncertain as the clients had no mobile phones or landline phones so they
had not been able to tell them of this unscheduled visit with Christmas
shoeboxes. And sure enough only one was in; in one apartment we waited for ages
as we could hear the children crying inside but no parent – Raul explained that
family had a mother and 2 teenage daughters who each had a small child and the
mother had a young child herself also; he expected whichever adult was with the
children had gone out to the nearby market for provisions.
The
only family we did see comprised a disabled mother and able bodied father and
the Speranta Familiei client was their daughter with a 2 year old child. Their
home (which was larger than some had high ceilings, but by the time they had
paid the rent, there was little left for food, etc. it was cold there and on
hearing there was no money to buy wood, several in the party donated money for
a load of wood. That money was left with Raul to administer.
In the
afternoon we went with pastor Janosh to the village of Urvind where we first
began working in November 1998 when there was no water, no electricity, the
people were filthy, none went to school – so VERY MANY CHANGES FOR GOOD there
it was like a victory convoy. SO many recognised us – it was lovely. The
high-light for Phil and me had to be
seeing Valentine's house which he built himself at the end of the village – a
bit of a Keith Robinson effort but such an achievement for a boy labelled as
educationally sub-normal when we first went there 10 years ago.