(aka Mud,Mud Glorious Mud)

Day 1

Our team of 2007 consisted of John Lelliott – our volunteer logistics manager who organized all the shoebox collections throughout the UK, Ben Van Ness – a ‘Friend of Link Romania’, Alison &  Brian Nobbs – long term supporters of the charity, Rose Taylor our office Manager and me Lisa Hector -  General Manager of Link Romania.

Team UK Photo

Pic 1 - L – R – Brian, Rose, John, Lisa, Ben & Alison looking warm and dry
Pic 2 – Everyone looking really cold, wet and tired and dreaming of a new charity called ‘Link Barbados’!

‘DALLAS’ SHANTY TOWN
First stop Dallas.  This is a shanty town built on the flat planes at the edge of Iasi.  It is a mixture of Romanian and Gypsy families and is a focal point for our work.  It is a very poor town and many houses do not have running water or heating.  They collect water from wells and many children are unable to go to school because they are needed by their families to work to help them survive.

We have many families who live in Dallas that we offer support and advice to all year round to help them with their circumstances.  We also do our best to persuade parents to send their children to school and we go daily to the town, collect them and take them to the  kindergartens and homework clubs that we run.  It is extremely muddy in the town as there are no proper roads. We were being particularly careful not to trail dirt through houses but people didn’t seem at all worried.  Of course when you looked more closely at the floors you realised they were also made of mud!  People live in extremely poor conditions and the children grow up with little hope or a future.  It took most of the days just to go to a few houses but we were greeted with smiles and thanks and people were very concerned that we had got muddy coming out to see them!

IasI Homeless Hostel
Next stop the homeless hostel a very bleak communist style block with bare walls and floors.  This is for people that have nowhere to live or in some cases where peoples houses have fallen down.  Guarded by the police we were only allowed in with an escort – a social worker from the local council.  They were there to make sure that not only were we safe but that no photos were taken inside the building.  It was absolutely grim with entire families living in a rooms measuring 12ft x 12ft.  It was not a nice place to be and extremely depressing.  Fortunately we are able to help some of the families and a few of the children come to our kindergartens.  We are really keen to help re house several families this year as some of them have been living there for years in what was originally temporary accommodation.

• The outside of Iasi Homeless Hostel
• Two of our children that live in the homeless shelter but attend our kindergarten.