Shanty Towns

                      A Future Changed                          

  'Dallas Shanty Town-Iasi, NE Romania

                                  

Conditions are very bad and most houses do not have running water – it must be fetched from a well in the street. There is very little electricity – candles are used which are particularly dangerous. No heating - wood has to be gathered before a house can be made warm. Children are being born and growing up in these towns and know no other life.

 Link Romania’s team reach out a helping hand to the poor and in particular shanty town residents such as those that live in ‘Dallas’ on the outskirts of Iasi. Although we can question some of the decisions that residents of the shanty town make unless we have suffered as they have or experienced their extreme poverty then it difficult to understand.

UPDATE ON FAMILIES LINK ROMANIA SUPPORTS IN DALLAS

The children attend our Little Rainbows Kindergarten

 
1.                  The Ciuciuc family
Mrs. Corodeanu and Mr. Ciuciuc have been together for  15 years and they have 6 children with ages between 13 years and 8 months. Two of them attend school and Gabriel is in our kindergarten project.Gabriel has some heart problems, but the doctors think that it will go in time
The family lives in a rented room, too small for all the 9 members of the family, for which they pay 300 lei (£60) every month.They have electricty, but fetch water from a neighbor for a monthly amount of money.
The family monthly income is the children's allowance of 450 lei (£94) and the mother' s wages of 420 lei (£88). The father has no stable income and he does odd jobs whenever possible. This is why the money is never enough and the parents are always struggling to live a decent life and help their children develop well and get as good an education as possible.
 
Gabriel Ciuciuc
            Before starting to attend kindergarten, Gabriel was supposed to stay home, looking after his siblings and with no possibility of getting any education. His mother “warned” us that the boy was very naughty and noisy. Instead, Gabriel, who loved coming to the kindergarten from the very beginning, proved to be one of the children who most quickly adjusted to our ethos, asking tens of questions, eager to learn everything from the very first day and prepared to spend all his time working in his book.
            Gabriel has good brains and is a perfectionist and he likes to do well every assignment he is given, even if there is no time left for other activities such as building. He is very fond of it and erects complex exquisite buildings using pieces of various kinds. He is one of the most cooperative children in class and never raises discipline problems. In turn he needs to always be encouraged and reassured, as he feels pretty insecure.
 
2.         The Enache    family
            Mrs. And Mr. Enache have 4 children: Nicu (11), Nicoleta (8), who is disabled, Dragos, (6) who is at our kindergarten and Cristi (4). When Cristi was born, the father was in prison and the family pressed the mother to entrust the boy to a foster family. The parents wish now to bring Cristi home, but the income of the family is not enough to support yet another child.
            The parents are making efforts to build another room next to the small one they live in now. The room is in the maternal grandmother's house, the relationship with whom is a tense one. There are fights going on all the time and the family has often been threatened to be kicked out. They have electricity, but no water. The only stable income of the family is the children's allowance of 160 lei (£33), the social benefit of 260 lei (£54) and Nicoleta's disabilty income of 84 lei( £18). The father does odd jobs and occasionally collects scrap iron.The mother does not have a job, as she is looking after Nicoleta, who is mentally retarded and needs a permanent attendant. Under the circumstances, even though the parents were in constant touch with Cristi, they cannot take their son home yet.
 
Dragos Enache
           
At the beginning Dragos was one of the most restless and naughty children in class, foul-mouthed and having a will of his own, showing off and causing trouble all around. He expected to be scolded and punished for his disobedience, as he was used to at home, but after several discussions with him, he was encouraged to change his behavior. He proved to be a mature child who only needed to be treated as such and shown trust. Dragos is now very eager to get ready for school in autumn by working hard in his book and trying to catch up with everything
            Dragos' family is very poor and many times the boy would come barefoot in his worn-out shoes, soaked to the skin because of lack of a warm coat or wearing the same clothes many days in a row. 2 times he missed kindergarten because he had no clean clothing to wear.
 
3.         The Sandu  family
            Mrs. Sandu and Mr. Gangal  have 3 children aged 3, 2 and 1 years old and Emanuel,  attends our kindergarten, 
            The family do not have their own place and had to move house lots of times until now. At the time being they all live in a tiny room for which they pay a rent of 400 lei(£83) per month and the conditions are far from being satisfactory. Unfortunately they soon have to leave this dwellings as well, as the owner wants to turn the room into a stable. The family is concerned of the situation and fears that pretty soon the children will no more have a roof, especially that all of them are ill because of the cold and lack of proper living conditions.
            The money made by the father and the children's allowance in the amount of 976 lei (£203)proves to be insufficient for the family's needs for all the efforts the parents are making in order to provide for their children.
 
 Emanuel Sandu
            We are constantly trying to encourage Emi, a boy with a very low self-esteem level, because this is not something that happens very often at home. This is why he still has an integration issue and finds it difficult to build meaningful and friendly relationships with the other children. When his mum cut her arm to the bone while working at home and had to go to the hospital for surgery, Emi had to stay with his grandma for a while, which contributed to him being confused and more hard to work with.
            His pace in tackling assignments is usually pretty slow, but there are instances when he gives the best answer of all students, which makes him very proud indeed. This makes him enjoy coming to the kindergarten and already his behavior improved a lot.

                                       ......................................................

Link Romania employs a social worker to visit families in this town to see how they can be helped.  We also help with medical and dental bills, with food parcels, taking people to hospital, encouraging their children to attend our kindergarden, give them clothes and most of all show them someone cares for them. 

 Poverty drives us to extreme measures sometimes. Over 12,000 children in the Iasi area are without one of their parents, 6,000 children have no parents at home at all and are looked after by siblings and grandparents.

Link Romania need you to help fund these projects. If you are able please either donate on-line for a one off payment or set up a standing order for £25 a month to support a family in the Shanty Towns.

We would also value your prayer for this project.