:: Thank you for visiting the website of The Care Project of Romania.org

We at Romania.org are very often contacted by visitors of our website, who are already aware of the immense problems children in Romania are facing. These dear visitors are willing to help. For this reason we set up the website you are just seeing, outlining the situation and giving you the occasion to help.

The Street Children in Romania

There are no accurate figures on the number of street children in Romania, but it is estimated that only in the capital of Bucharest alone, there are between three and five thousand children living on the streets and over nine thousand in the entire Romania. As Romania's notorious institutions are being closed down, the numbers are on the increase.

Some of the children are as young as four or five years old, though the majority are adolescents.
Most of the children have fled state-run institutions or orphanages because of the poor conditions there or because they were being abused by other children or the staff. The rest of Romania's street children have fled broken homes or abusive and poor parents.

On the streets, the children earn money by begging, stealing, doing menial tasks or prostitution. They live in small metal containers or card boxes (1 metre by 1.5 metres) which line some of the sidewalks in Bucharest, in one of the city's main train stations, the underground or the sewers.

Because Romanian orphanages only accept children up to eighteen and few state programs help young adults, older children often find themselves thrown back on the street.

One girl said she spent most of her life in an orphanage after her impoverished family abandoned her at birth. When she turned eighteen, she was told she must leave. "We grew up and they kicked us out!"

About Romania.org´s Care Project

We raise funds for a private safe house for homeless children in south east of Romania. Children are provided there with refuge, medical care, food, comfort and education.

Links are made to reunite the children with their families or alternatively to find good foster homes. A successful outcome for each child depends on long term support and counseling to families and foster careers.

Our teams work on the streets together with the Department of Child Protection in an outreach program. It identifies homeless children very early in their life on the street before they succumb to the inevitable risks of substance abuse and criminality.

Though we are a totally private project, we have full support of the Government of Romania (e.g. National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption).

We offer food, friendship and support to each child before they are admitted to our refuge.

We also provide "drop-in" day care facilities for children who do not wish to be admitted so that they still have access to medical care, showers, food and support services.

• A back-to-school program via special literacy classes (where needs be)
• An annual summer camp in the country or by the sea
• Weekly arts and music therapy
• Specialist drama and conflict resolution therapy sessions by a resident psychologist and visiting specialists
• Sports activities via a local high school sports initiative
• Long-term follow-up where children have been reunited with their families
• Drop-in support care to adolescents who have left our safe house and become independent
• An excellent record in campaigning with the state and other NGO’s for good services and reintegration into school and the community for former street children
  

Our project offers solutions that are sensitive to each child's needs and wishes - whether this be reintegration with their family, fostering, adoption or long term care with us.

Please help!

Donations are the quickest and simplest way to give your support.

All of our work targets the poorest of the poor, the homeless children of Romania.

Here are some examples of the good your money can do:

• 40,-Euros
  may not buy a lot on it's own - but when added to our crisis fund for the destitute can have a huge impact.
  
• 80,- Euros
  maintains vital independence for an ill person in need by providing nursing and care in their own home.
  
• 200,- Euros
  funds a "Back to School Pack" (haircut, clothing, footwear,schoolbag and materials), enabling a former street child to start a new life with dignity.
  
• 400,- Euros
  is the cost of a week's food for 20 children rescued from the streets and sewers, making a fresh start in our refuge for former street children.
  
• 600,- Euros
  can provide a sustainable master plan to rescue a family from the poverty trap and get the children back to school.

Any donation you could give, large or small, will make a real difference to a child in need in Romania.

Please make a quick donation now!
Just click on the button below:

You can also give a modest amount on a regular basis. Even a fraction of the price of your daily newspaper could make a huge difference to many children lives in Romania. There are two good reasons for this:

• We want to ensure a long-term future for our Romanian friends.
• Giving regularly also means the charity could increase the value of your gift by nearly one third at no extra cost to you. This is because the most western countries revenue services will usually refund the tax you have already paid on your donations.

We have chosen Pay Pal to securely and efficiently process your donation. Founded in 1998, PayPal, an eBay Company, enables any individual or business with an email address to securely, easily and quickly send payments online. PayPal's service builds on the existing financial infrastructure of bank accounts and credit cards and utilizes the world's most advanced proprietary fraud prevention systems to create a safe, global, real-time payment solution.
PayPal has quickly become a global leader in online payment solutions with over 31 million account members worldwide.
PayPal has received close to 20 awards for technical excellence from the Internet industry and the business community at large - most recently the 2003 Webby Award for Best Finance Site and the 2003 Webby People's Voice Award for Best Finance Site. Please click on the button below to make a donation:

We guarantee that 100% of any donation from a member of the public goes directly to Romania, because our administration costs are funded separately.

If you have questions about The Care Project of Romania.org, please click here to contact us...

Webmasters:

Please host one of our banners on your website and link to us in order to "help us help"! Click here for the files...

Links:

• Romania.org main website
• World Bank Institute: "Roaming the Streets of Eastern Europe: The Children of Gloom" by Ronald Penton.
• Reuters: "Romania's Street Children Have Kids of Their Own" by Dina Kyriakidou.
• BBC News: "Bitter Winter for Romania's Street Children" by Harold Briley.
• Houston Chronicle: "Romania: Born to be Forgotten" by Ruth Sorelle.
• BBC News: "Romania: British Vicar Charged"
• CNN: "Sewers Home to Romania's Forgotten Orphans" by Bill Delaney.
• more to be added occasionally - click your flagg on the top of this page to see links in your preferred language.

This charity website is hosted at no charge by S.C. Internet Service Romania, S.A.