Romania is located at the intersection of Central and Southeastern Europe, bordering on the Black Sea. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, the 11th largest city in the European Union. In 1967, the Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu outlawed both abortion and contraception, leading to a rise in birth rates. This ban resulted in a vast number of children being abandoned, with a large number of these orphans being disabled and mentally ill. These children began to overflow orphanages, sending the condition of these facilities into a tremendous decline. The children were subjected to neglect and abuse, including physical and sexual, and were drug induced to control behavior. In 1989, Ceausescu was arrested and tried for illegal gathering of wealth and genocide, and was executed. After his fall from power, there were more than 100,000 abandoned orphans in institutions throughout Romania.
The conditions of these orphanages and facilities were nothing short of atrocious. The children were alone for most of the day, left lying in their cribs receiving no more than five minutes of stimulation or human interaction a day. Babies weren't consoled when they were crying, changed when they were wet, or fed when they were hungry. These children began to develop more problems due to their time in these institutions, such as mental illness, developmental delays, physical deformities, and disease. After the media began to report on these horrific conditions, money started to roll in and conditions slowly improved. However, the state of these facilities are still in no way near acceptable.
In the late 2000s, nearly 10% of the population were in absolute poverty and of these, 90% live in rural areas. In 2006, ABC's 2020 did a special about the present conditions in Romania to follow up from their 1990 report. They found that while the conditions in state run orphanages improved, many were still the same. One reporter found two children lying under blankets with their hands bound, which the worker said was done to prevent self-mutilation. Children were bound in straight jackets or tied to chairs with their own shirtsleeves. Some toddlers were seen banging their heads against their steel cribs and sitting in their own urine. The full article can be read here. While these stories are bad enough, those of the disabled children in Romania are even worse. Seen as "biological garbage", these children are abandoned and left to die alone, neglected, and malnourished.
For these children lost in the system, the only hope of escape is through foster care. Romanian adoption is very difficult due to government regulations and rules. In 2006, Romania was found to spend 70% of money for child protection on infrastructure, 18% on foster care, and 1% on training staff. Which brings me back to the original questions.... WHY Romania???
Education and training. That is what we hope to bring to the workers in the group home in Romania in which we will be working. Our hope is that we will leave something to better the lives of the children living there. We were told there are children of all ages, with various diagnoses such as Cerebral Palsy, Spina Bifida, and Developmental Delay. I, along with two other pediatric physical therapists and one lone occupational therapist, will travel to Sibiu, Romania, in July to hopefully make some sort of impact for the long term benefit of these children. We will be working at Fundatia Heart of Hope, a group home for disabled children, in order to train the staff on exercises and treatments to prevent deformity and disability. I will be making more posts in the coming days of just how you can help. One huge way of course is through financial support. We have a fundraising account set up here. Any help you could possibly give would be beneficial as we need to raise approximately $10,000 to cover the cost of travel and supplies. We will be traveling with the awesome organization Medical Teams International, as we did last year when we went to Haiti. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers during this time of fundraising and preparation. Feel free to post the link to our fundraising page or blog on your own Facebook. I hope this blog will continue to show the passion we have for this population and these precious forgotten children. Thank you for your support!!!
-Ashley
The conditions of these orphanages and facilities were nothing short of atrocious. The children were alone for most of the day, left lying in their cribs receiving no more than five minutes of stimulation or human interaction a day. Babies weren't consoled when they were crying, changed when they were wet, or fed when they were hungry. These children began to develop more problems due to their time in these institutions, such as mental illness, developmental delays, physical deformities, and disease. After the media began to report on these horrific conditions, money started to roll in and conditions slowly improved. However, the state of these facilities are still in no way near acceptable.
In the late 2000s, nearly 10% of the population were in absolute poverty and of these, 90% live in rural areas. In 2006, ABC's 2020 did a special about the present conditions in Romania to follow up from their 1990 report. They found that while the conditions in state run orphanages improved, many were still the same. One reporter found two children lying under blankets with their hands bound, which the worker said was done to prevent self-mutilation. Children were bound in straight jackets or tied to chairs with their own shirtsleeves. Some toddlers were seen banging their heads against their steel cribs and sitting in their own urine. The full article can be read here. While these stories are bad enough, those of the disabled children in Romania are even worse. Seen as "biological garbage", these children are abandoned and left to die alone, neglected, and malnourished.
For these children lost in the system, the only hope of escape is through foster care. Romanian adoption is very difficult due to government regulations and rules. In 2006, Romania was found to spend 70% of money for child protection on infrastructure, 18% on foster care, and 1% on training staff. Which brings me back to the original questions.... WHY Romania???
Education and training. That is what we hope to bring to the workers in the group home in Romania in which we will be working. Our hope is that we will leave something to better the lives of the children living there. We were told there are children of all ages, with various diagnoses such as Cerebral Palsy, Spina Bifida, and Developmental Delay. I, along with two other pediatric physical therapists and one lone occupational therapist, will travel to Sibiu, Romania, in July to hopefully make some sort of impact for the long term benefit of these children. We will be working at Fundatia Heart of Hope, a group home for disabled children, in order to train the staff on exercises and treatments to prevent deformity and disability. I will be making more posts in the coming days of just how you can help. One huge way of course is through financial support. We have a fundraising account set up here. Any help you could possibly give would be beneficial as we need to raise approximately $10,000 to cover the cost of travel and supplies. We will be traveling with the awesome organization Medical Teams International, as we did last year when we went to Haiti. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers during this time of fundraising and preparation. Feel free to post the link to our fundraising page or blog on your own Facebook. I hope this blog will continue to show the passion we have for this population and these precious forgotten children. Thank you for your support!!!
-Ashley
