Second day, 15th March 2010
Irina picked me up in the morning and we went to her office in the municipality building. We had a short meeting with the deputy mayor to whom we presented Global Footsteps, the conference and the purpose of my stay in Valcea.
Most of the projects that exist are being implemented by the city council. The reason for this is, as I understood it, that it is very hard to get financial support for projects, as the country does not have much money. Therefore, many projects are funded by the European Union, because they can not get money from the state or the community. Getting these funds and running projects seems to be easier for a city coucil than for a private person.
Irina had chosen some projects, which are being run by the Social Department. So, after we met with the deputy mayor, we went to a meeting with the head of this department. The head seemed very interested in the charity, the conference and her department having the chance to participate in this network. She even called for an employee, a young woman called Simina, who spoke English very well and showed a great interest in representing the Social Department at Footstep 12.
Together with Simina, Irina and I went visiting a project realised by the Social Department. The IOANA centre gives support to homeless people and tries to make a normal life possible for them. The centre can host 21 persons, who share seven bedrooms à three beds. Every day, one meal is served. The project in EU-funded and has been opened 1,5 years ago – since then, 100 people have been enlisting the centre’s assistence and 62 have lived in the centre’s rooms. The stays are ment to be temporary, but there is no fixed time limit – the beneficials can stay until they have the possiblity to move to another place. People can also get medical, social and psychological help. A priest is coming to the centre several times a week and meets with the people. He also offers small loans if necessary and has been a great supporter of the centre since its foundation by donating books and other useful things. Unfortunately I could not meet him – this would have been very interesting. The centre tries to reintegrate the homeless people into the job market as well by offering help with job applications. At the centre we met the director of IOANA, who showed us around. She told us, that the centre had difficulties regaring financing and staff: As the payments for employees are very low, it is almost impossible to find specialists willing to work for them. In this moment, there is no psychologist and no nurse avaliable. She also showed a great interest in the conference and especialily in the type of work other centres in other linked communities are doing and how they are dealing with difficulties. We also met two people living in the centre and in the end were shown some pictures of homeless people taken in the moment of their arrival at the centre and after some time later – which made a great difference. As I understood, this centre is very important for the community as many people are poor and a great amount of them are living on the street. This is the only project in the area of Valcea to deal with homeless people’s problems.
After the visit to the IOANA centre for homeless people, we went to see an NGO, which does mainly environmental and youth projects. A friend of Irina’s is working for them. One of their last activities was a litter pick around Valcea, because litter is a very serious problem in Romania. Now they are trying to protect an old oak, which has historic importance for the community. Another future project could a small farm for endangered species in Romania. Apparently they have many good ideas, but a great lack of funds, which is a serious limit to their possibilities. The director told us that he would like to send a younger member of the NGO, being more receptive and open for those experiences than older people. He promised me to send a short overview of their projects and goals to me via email. Irina also told him about the charity shop in Cheltenham and he had the idea to open a similar shop in Ramnicu as well, selling products from the communities connected through GF. He would send the money back to Cheltenham. He also thought of sending some craft products from Romania to the FootSteps shop.
To end the day, Irina took me to a very very nice market, I could have taken about 100 pictures of all the farmer women selling there fruits and vegetables. Then I was brought back to my room and had a rest. In the evening, Irina came back to take me with her to her home for dinner.
