Sofi and Silvia

Sofi and Silvia live with Helen Evans in our village Sanleani. Helen is from Fife in Scotland and has lived in Romania for the past 9 years, working with young people who grew up in the old 'orphanages'. For the past few years Helen has worked 'under' Vis de Copil and has had a variety of young people live with her, some so disturbed that they have made her life a misery at times. However, Sofi (his proper name is Sorin) who grew up in the most awful conditions somehow managed to remain a kind, caring young man who loves Helen as a mother. When he was very young, Sofi was sent to the residential school for slow learners in Ineu, an hour and a half north of Arad. The infamous 'orphanages' of Romania were never really orphanages, they were either residential schools for children with special needs or children's homes for those whose parents were unable to care for them. However often due to the difficulties of poor families inability to travel to visit their children and various other factors most of the children ended up to all practical purposes as 'orphans'.

Three years ago we were looking for a home for Silvia who had grown up in a different 'orphanage' (school for children with learning difficulties), then at 16 been re-integrated with her natural mother only to then be sent by her mother to the centre for young delinquents. Poor Silvia ... after a year at the centre the staff had only good to say of her and pleaded with her to find her a place after she turned 18. We tried several options without success, and then Helen sad she would give her a trial even though up to that point she had taken in only boys. The rest is a fairytale come true ... Sofi and Silvia fell in love and in October 2006 got married.

Both managed to find a job cleaning apartment blocks and then a better job in a textile factory - Silvia on a sewing machine and Sofi cleaning. They have their ups and downs but we are all proud of them for the amazing progress they have made.