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Libra Foundation, Romania (July 2007)

Throughout the course of the past academic year I have been working with the Libra Foundation to set up ‘The Romania Project’ within Welbeck College. In the summer of 2007 TQ and Interserve kindly contributed significantly by sponsoring the trip to a deprived community in a slowly developing country.

After being generously sponsored £500 by each company two Welbeck students, along with 9 other students from colleges in Southampton set out to a town called Onesti in eastern central Romania. An early start, a short plane ride and a 6 hour minibus journey later, we arrived at the children’s Residential Centre that would be the focus of our work for the next 2 weeks. From the outside the building looked run down, but from within there was great activity as faces were pressed up against almost every window facing the car park. Expecting to see the same pattern of ‘run down building’ on the inside I was amazed to find the inside full of colour, patterns and pictures. Over the last couple of years, the Romania Project teams had made a huge impact on improving the inside of the building.

The following day, in the morning sunshine, we were invited to watch whilst the children performed their welcome dances to the sound of popular Romanian music. Almost all of the children are mentally or physically handicapped, but they put on a very moving display for us. Shortly after we were ambushed by all the kids who were riveted by everything and anything we owned, especially the sun cream, and the braver team members let some of the children have a go with their cameras. We were then taken on a tour of the centre so we could look at the different sections where the children lived and where we would do some work. It became clear that, due to the low ratio of carers to children, the children seldom get out of the Centre, so this has become one of the key things that Libra focuses on whilst the Team is out there.

For the remainder of the first week we got the children to use some of the arts and craft equipment that we had sent out to make costumes for the play that we had planned for later on in the week. The theme was ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and we had them building mushrooms and animal masks and caterpillars. We also had a rehearsal with them on the Thursday because on Friday we took a public bus to Lupesti. In Lupesti we visited the local school which had children of a similar age group. We started by playing ball games in the school and getting the children to interact with each other, which was a rare opportunity for the children from the Centre. We then went out into the countryside down rickety tracks. We eventually arrived in a small clearing where we performed Alice in Wonderland with the children, followed by a walk to a waterfall which the children found very exciting.

The following morning we worked in the severe unit, doing wheelchair dancing and using different sensory materials like gloves filled with flour/sugar or water along with foam brushes, jelly, play dough and other such substances to help stimulate the children’s sensory awareness, as they have few toys and suffer from sensory deprivation. In the afternoons we took a group of the children to the park to play on the swings and on the climbing frames and other such attractions that can be found at a park which are common for us but to them provide hours of endless fun.

In the second week, we took a handful of the children away to a camp. We went to a very isolated place called Pipirig, plum in the middle of Romania’s beautiful picturesque countryside. We spent a lot of time playing in the river with the children, climbing the hills to pick different flowers which we then used along with other items like ribbons and feathers to weave onto a large net which they really enjoyed. We also went out to a buffalo farm where there were many deer and pheasants along with the buffalo. We also went to some of the monasteries near to where we camping. As many of the children were very religious, they really enjoyed this trip. Some local children came to where we were staying to perform a dance for us in very traditional costumes.

Once all the fun and frolics was over, we all climbed into a non-air-conditioned bus for the 4 hour journey back to the centre in Onesti in sweltering heat on bumpy roads.

Once back at the Centre the usual routine was soon re-established. We played with the children as much as possible because our time was rapidly drawing to a close. We took a group to the park to play rounders and a game which involved throwing small spongy balls at a sheet. The catch was that there was water involved and, as expected, it all ended in chaos but everyone was smiling, and that was the most encouraging thing, and the reason that I would very much like to return next year with more students from Welbeck to share in what I saw and learnt this Summer.

Edward Murray, Portland 06E

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