News - July 2007

From the beginning of this year we had in our care 50 people (teenagers, single mothers, elderly). For this year we had a plan of work well made, which is our guide. We have planned all the activities and the way how the work should be done during the year. In this plan, evaluations of the work are included for every 3-4 month. From October we will publish it on our site. We are at the present, going along with the plan.

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We are still offering all social services for free, but as we told you last summer, we are still working at a way to implement payment for some social services for people who have the possibilities to pay (or part-pay) them.

From the day center for teenagers, as you have seen on the news, a group of 20 Romanians were in Scotland. It was a really great time and we all learned a lot. In August a Scottish group will come to Romania and we will have a cultural camp in Ic-Ponor, in Apuseni mountains, Romania. We have seen that the cultural exchange program was a great experience for our teenagers and we will try to keep it going each year. All the teenagers who have been tutored by us this year passed the national exam, except one. It was a great success and from next year we will try to implement vocational counseling for them.

Last year of work (September 2005 - August 2006) we had Anca and Stefania as workers, but Stefania got married in the States and Anca is pregnant. Therefore, from January 2007, instead of Stefania, we have had a new social assistant working with us - Andreea Albu and she will have a new colleague who is a psychologist - Mihaela Coman. This time they are working to plan the year 2008 and we work together to see how we can improve the work we have done until now.

In the mono parental families project we have had an unexpected surprise: most of the single mothers who asked for help this year were homeless mothers, 8 of them out of 12. In a normal situation, the Local Council should provide social houses for them. Unfortunately, this did not happened. What are the solutions? We can see four of them:

1. to look for and find the European legislation for mono parental families and to make pressure on the Local Council, government, to give them social houses. This is the best solution, because if they receive a home, the rent payed for it is very low and they can afford to pay it. We tried to have a dialog with the Local Council and they answered in various impolite ways, that they don't have this possibility.

2. to build houses for them. We have a collaboration with Habitat for Humanity and we consider such a possibility. There are many unknown details here too. First of all, they need a land which is very expansive. On the outskirts of Cluj it is 60-70 euro per square meter. Another possibility is to get some land from the Council, but they don't have any. We will pursuit to persuade them to give us some. Another problem is that for the start, the families need to pay 1000 euros and when the house is ready, to pay around 50 euros per month for 20 years. We have to guarantee that this payment will be done and if they don't pay, we have to pay. It is a big decision to guarantee for 20 years for 8 mothers...And this is just for the mothers we assist this year, but what will happen next year?

Here we have to mention that Habitat's beneficiaries are families who have a medium income and who can afford to pay 50 euros per month for 20 years. The mothers we assist are much poorer. Even more, if the Habitat program will be available for them, they can built the houses in 1 or 2 years time, which is a problem because the mothers we assist are already in a desperate need of a home.

Habitat were very kind to make with us a special contract of collaboration and they agreed to build houses for our mono parental families with the condition that we guarantee for them. For us it is a big decision to take because it is a long term one and involves a great amount of money. Therefore we will think about this and in autumn we need to take a decision. Anyway, this can be considered only if we (or the mothers) will receive land from the Council. In this project, we have Ildi Balint as social worker and coordinator, and from September she will have a colleague, Ligia Bote. A big question for us - because of the things said above – is if we will continue this project or just give it up. We are praying and asking guidance from God in this matter. We feel that we can not fulfill these mothers' biggest material need – a home. On the other hand, we would like to help them, but we don't know how.

3. to get rents - here are a few problems:

a. a rent is around 150 euro,

b. the assisted mothers have a very low education, therefore, their income can not be more then 100 euro,

c. even more, the assisted mothers need money for utilities (electricity, gas, water etc.), food and so on.

For us, to help them, it is very costly. But even if we could manage to pay for them, in a year time after we leave them, they will be in a same situation as they were.

4. to find a charity home where they can go and stay for a while. We are looking for such a possibility in Cluj, but we don't know yet if there is something like this. There is also a problem, because they can not stay there forever.

In the assisted elderly project the things look stable. Rodica Rusu, which is the coordinator has a new colleague since January, Adela Balta. Adela is driving, which is a big help for the work because in this project there's a lot of visiting to be done at the elderly ladies' homes. Without a car, especially in difficult weather conditions (extreme heat, as it is from May to October, storms and heavy winters) it is very tiresome. Therefore Adela is a great help for Rodica. Until now they worked well together. Elderly are very frail as they get older, but they are well looked after and this makes their old age more comfortable.

As for the administration department, we are focused on how to develop the database of sponsors or the economic side of the charity. As I told you in a previous letter, from January we had Cristian as fund-raiser. In the beginning, he seemed to be the right person for this job, but after 6 months, I decided that is better to look for somebody else. It is very hard to find the right person for such a job. In our country it is not a tradition in helping others and giving money, to be generous. Most of charities are founded by protestants and they seek for help from businessmen from protestant churches. As a result, the protestant businessmen are overwhelmed by charities and it is hard for them to give to so many.

Western countries, who were the main sponsors, are thinking maybe that it is time for us to go on on our own feet.

A solution to the problem of raising funds could be to start a business to sponsor the charity. There are two ideas which I believe can be very profitable: an Entertainment Center for all ages with a big variety of educational activities and another one is the building of a resort in a mountainous region for 50 persons.

Each of these projects costs around 250.000 euros. If we would have one of this projects done, I think we can be on our own feet and that will give us a big financial freedom. If you know somebody who would like to be part in one of these projects and instead of monthly donation will give us all the money once, we can have the Entertainment center for all ages/mountain resort ready by the end of the year. In order to get the money, we will try to apply for the European funds.

We pray that God will bring such investors in our path. For all things written above, for strength, staff, volunteers, sponsors and our people assisted, we give thanks to our Lord, Jesus Christ. He made all this possible and He put all these things together like in a puzzle for the sake of the poor widow and orphan, and for those in need. We praise God that he is using us all, for the glory of His kingdom and we desire to be faithful stewards of everything He gives us. We praise His name, we thank Him and we thank to all those who let themselves be used by God in order to help us, to help others.

May God bless you all