STEPS Romania new project 2010

In 2010 STEPS Romania has started work in Slobozia, a desperately poor Roma village near Iasi in north east Romania. STEPS is collaborating with a Romanian charity ‘Link Romania’, which has a small building used as a kindergarten, a homework club, for youth clubs, mothers’ groups and bible studies etc. This small building can only hold about 15 children and urgently needs extending.

This map shows that Iasi is near the border with Moldova,

and this map shows the location of Slobozia.

It takes about 40 minutes to drive from Iasi to Slobozia, the final part of the journey along unmade roads. The nearest airport is Bacau about 1 hour from Iasi.

Our experience shows that the further Roma villages are from Bucharest, the poorer they are, and Slobozia is indeed very poor. The kindergarten has no piped water, so water is drawn from a well. There is no sewage system, just a hole in the ground. One house has electricity and a wire is attached to it to provide lighting.

Here is an extract from the Link Romania web site:

“The Roma children are neglected both by their parents and relatives, and by the Romanian society. They receive a very poor education. The parents are busy. The mother and older sisters are working in the household with the younger children, meanwhile the fathers are out in the surrounding villages with merchandise, to earn the income for the family. They don’t get any sort of welfare benefits. The only income they have is the child allowance, providing they have identification papers for them. We believe that by educating the people they will become financially independent and they will not involve in criminality.

This is an ongoing project, even during the holidays. We believe that the children need ongoing attention, education, involvement. They live in very bad areas, and because they do not have a playground or a decent yard to play, they would involve in gangs and later in criminality. That would be the way forward, because they would lack the education in order to become skilled people that could earn money honestly.

This venture provides a small building in a village with opportunities to hold a kindergarten, homework club, youth clubs, mothers’ groups, Bible Studies etc. Three buildings, in Erbiceni, Slobozia and Rediu, are complete and being used.” Link Romania web site

This is what the single room kindergarten in Slobozia looked like in early 2010. We plan to complete the extension, which is visible at the end of the building, and extend the whole building upwards to create a second floor.

A STEPS Romania team spent a week working on the building in May. They left a useable second room. We now have an estimate for removing the existing roof, putting in main wall supports, and constructing a new roof over the whole building.

STEPS trustee, the Rev Ashley Cooper writes:

This is probably the most rewarding project STEPS has undertaken – as this is a rural community that has seen little investment and support – the challenges mean many (of our volunteers) won’t (want to) work in the village. This is an opportunity to meet the needs of some of the most desperate people living in Romania! We will need to live in difficult circumstances for 8 hours a day for maybe 6 or 7 days – these children live here 24/7! This will not be a holiday!

This is an ambitious project which will stretch our meagre resources.

Any help would be gratefully received.