TV stars ... Not!

Recently I (Kathryn) had two TV interviews on West TV and yesterday was on TV Arad along with Philip and some volunteers from a local organisation ' Ofensiva Tinerilor' (Youth Offensive). It's a bit scary but we felt it was well worth it for the people with whom we work. It gave us a chance to speak about our work and future dreams and plans as well as generally to say some positive things about Romania and Romanians! We love Romania and her people and hate the negative image created by certain groups. 

Visiting around Scotland

Just two of the lovely people we had the privilege to get to know on our recent visit to the UK. Raj and his sister, Gurmel came to stay with our friends Gordon and Kirsteen Dutton while we were there and we had a great time getting to know them!

It's good to be back!

After all the traveling it was a relief to arrive back in Romania. As always on our return there is a lot to catch up with and at least one of our utilities cut off due to late payment - this time it was the phone, internet and tv ... well better that than water or electricity! It's good to see that activities at the Secret Garden have continued in our absence - we have a good team and they have worked well. It's so lovely to see the children again, we really miss them when we're away.

Annual trek across Europe

At the beginning of August Amy, Nina and I began the annual drive across Europe, Kenneth having flown over to Scotland ahead of us for heart and other medical check ups! It was the first time either Amy or I had done the drive without Kenneth's help, so we were a little nervous about it - though to be honest I think Kenneth was far more anxious for us than we were! He made us up a folder with all our travel arrangements beautifully organised ... with money for road taxes in the relevant currencies and even coins for toilet stops and two pound coins for the Dartford Tunnel in London!

We enjoyed the journey and had a lot of fun together ... Nina kept calling it 'our girls trip out'! After several stops along the way we arrived in Glasgow and are spending the time catching up with as many family and friends as possible and sharing all the news about our Work In Arad.It's wonderful to have so many positive aspects to report on and very little negative ... it hasn't always been that way, that's for sure! 

Amy and Nina in Ikea in Traun, Austria

Nina at the Formula 1 hotel in Dunkirk waiting to leave

The 'White cliffs of Dover'"

A girl needs her pearls when she's traveling!

Irish invasion!

For the whole of July we have Irish volunteers coming to the Secret Garden to do a variety of activities with the children - it's wonderful! We also have some of our new Romanian volunteers coming in, so all in all things are looking very good this summer!

Our volunteers get to have soooo much fun!

We have the most lovely group of LDS missionaries who come and help us out with practical work around the Secret Garden ... they do some of the horrible jobs and we really appreciate them ...

This is 'Smiley' because he's ALWAYS smiling!

"We just love cleaning bathrooms!"

Supervisor?

the bathrooms were due a spring clean!

Tara lui Andrei (Andrew's country)

Albert has just submitted a project proposal to 'Tara lui Andrei' which is a competition run by the Romania oil company Petrom. Tara lui Andrei means literally Andrew's country, after St Andrew who is Romania's patron saint, in addition to being Scotland's! 

The project is for us to have a safe play area for children here at the Secret Garden and the public vote will decide the winner ... so if you can, please vote! Click on the link below to register and vote ... we are not sure yet if people can vote from outside Romania, we are getting Amy to try from Glasgow!

  http://www.taraluiandrei.ro/idei-din-tla/proiect-loc-de-joaca-pentru-copiii-defavorizati-id-328-cmsid-65

Heatwave

I hate to complain about the weather ... but ... having had the longest Winter most people in Arad remember, and not much of a Spring at all, we have now entered full scorching hot Summer and are quite literally melting! Days now of a fairly constant 36 degrees is taking it's toll on us all, sapping our energy ... believe me it's hard to concentrate on anything when it's so hot. The office is the hottest room, as it is a new construction added on to the building, the rest is over 100 years old ... they obviously knew more about how to build for the heat in those days! I brought a fan from home to the office but it's pathetic efforts aren't helping a great deal, probably keeping us from passing out though! 

Think of us sweltering away but even more ... think of the families with whom we work who don't even have a fan to help them cope with the heat. Most of our families live in one rented room or a simple one room dwelling and the heat in some of them is unbearable ... but they have no choice but to bear it. Life is hard when you're poor.

We love our multi-cultural volunteers!

One of the lovely aspects of the Secret Garden is that we have the privilege of working with volunteers from all over Europe and further afield. For our children and families it is a sign to them that people care about them, that they are not forgotten, that they matter to someone. For the volunteers it is an experience which most of them will never forget. For a few days, weeks or months they work alongside our Romanian staff or volunteers and with our children, learning about them, learning to love them. Walls which exist between people from different cultures are gradually being broken down, little by little. When you have spent time with a person, sitting with them while taking part in various activities, when you have learned to see that person as a human being just like you, though maybe poorer, then it is hard to return to your own country and forget them. Over the past few years we have seen volunteers come and go from so many countries and it has been such a positive experience for us all ... and I hope, for them too!

Homelessness in Arad

We have been living in Arad for almost 13 years and we have seen a great deal of change, much of it for the better.  However, homelessness continues to be a big issue here as elsewhere in Romania.  Many of the original street children with whom we first worked are still here though of course after 13 years they are no longer children, they are now ' street adults'.  There are also homeless older people for whom there is very little provision - some of them have heard of our day centre and come along for a meal and a shower and out of compassion for them we cannot refuse.

What are we supposed to do with such people? There is a desperate need for a Work to be set up specifically for homeless adults, leaving us to concentrate on the street children and on prevention strategies.  The State Social Services here in Arad are already overstretched, understaffed and underfunded so there is unlikely to be help coming from that quarter. Clearly we are unable to move in that direction as we too are already overstretched - so my question is, who will do it?

Local food donations

Food donations from local sources are increasing significantly. It's such an encouragement to us to see more and more people from our local community visiting and bearing gifts of food. We've always hoped for more local interest and support because it's vital for the long term future of the work. Recently we've been quite overwhelmed at times by the generosity of people!

Philip making fruit salad - complements of Moise Nicoara high school students

Welcome to the 'Vis' team!

Last week saw our team grow by two people. One of them, Irina (another Irina, not our former worker) has been working with us as a volunteer already for a few months and our partners in the UK 'Humanity at Heart' have very kindly offered to pay a salary for us to employ her for a year. This is great news for Irina who has been looking for a job for a while... and it's great news for us too. 

Albert, our other new team member has joined us to be responsible for funding issues. We need to find ways to raise the profile of our work and to bring in desperately needed funds if we are to continue. We are very hopeful that Albert is the person to help us in this area and his first week with us has been an extremely positive one ... long may it last! 

Homework club

During the afternoon when we have our programme for street people, there have always been a few children wanting to come and do their homework. In the past we have not allowed children to come in the afternoons unless they are already on the streets, as we don't want them having contact with street folk. However,  their need is so great that we have recently decided to try running a homework club in one of the activity rooms, separate from the rest of the programme. Some local volunteers, including students from a local high school have offered to help us with this very needed activity - school here is hard and homework is difficult for children to do alone with no help and guidance.

Spring at the Secret Garden

the honeysuckle is gorgeous ... and the perfume takes your breathe away!

after a long, long winter, the children are finally able to enjoy playing in the sunshine

"Katy, take a photo of us in prison ... pleeeeease!"

Carina and Ionut (pronounced Yonoots, means 'little John')

Financial challenges

Running a small charity is probably the most challenging thing we have ever done ... and we certainly didn't ever plan to do it, it just happened! Over the past almost 13 years we have experienced many hard times but somehow we have always managed to keep going. While our income as a charity has increased significantly over the years, our expenditure has also increased, leaving us constantly struggling to balance the books.

Our current annual budget for the charity is approximately 20,000 euros per year - what does this cover?

• running costs for the Secret Garden Day Centre, where anything from 20 to 70 people come in a day to have showers, wash clothes, eat and participate in activities. 
• one full time paid staff member
• expenses for the 'Team House' in Sanleani where we accommodate all our short term volunteers and visitors to the charity.
• maintenance and repair for both properties, including building insurance
• transport costs eg home visits, delivery of aid to communities etc

Finances are so tight at present that we are having to consider cutting back on our services - this may include restricting people to a maximum of two showers a week, offering only one cup of tea or coffee per day and various other measures.

We believe that as a charity we offer 'value for money' to our supporters, we try to be good stewards of resources and to be economical in all that we do while attempting to also offer a quality service to all our 'clients'. 

Cristina's back!

Cristina worked with us for a few months and was excellent. Prior commitments limited her time with us but now we have the chance to employ her again for a month, perhaps a little longer. It's very exciting because we badly need help with all the admin and haven't yet found a suitable person for the longer term. As is so often the case, we don't have the necessary funding to employ anyone but we so badly need staff that we are taking yet another step of faith, albeit this time a smaller one than some of our past ones!

More from Retford New Life Centre team at the Secret Garden

We had a great few days with Susan Davies and the Retford guys - all respect, Susan for coming out with five boys / men!

It's been a busy two weeks for them, but then, our weeks are always busy aren't they?  It's lovely to have both activity rooms and the entrance hall repainted, they badly needed it - Luca, our street 'boy' volunteer kept trying to get them to sand and paint the dining room too!  They promised him 'next time' ...

Spring this year didn't come properly - it's been unseasonably wet and miserable at times but on Tuesday it was dry so we took the chance to have a day in the forest with children from one of the poor communities - I'll post photos soon.

All in all, a very successful and fruitful 'mission' for the team! As for us all at 'A Child's Dream'  it's always very rewarding when visitors enjoy their stay as evidenced by the guys all echoing  Arnold Swartzeneggar's famous words -  'I'LL BE BACK'!

Retford 'Dream Team' at the Secret Garden

On Tuesday the team from Retford arrived ready for action! They have spent the past three days singing, dancing, telling stories, playing games and sanding and painting. The drop in centre badly needed repainting but as with everything else it's a question of time and money!

We now have lovely peach coloured walls in both activity rooms and the entrance hall - it looks really lovely! 

This week in Romania was 'Scoala Altfel' (School Differently) and we were invited into the local village school, Livada Scoala Generala and one of the city's high schools, Moise Nicoara to do activities with the pupils - a huge amount of fun was had by all.