Violent hugs and immediate contact with the children. This is what meets the volunteers who do the work in the News Start program in Romania.
TEXT AND PHOTO: MAGNE REIGSTAD
We follow Mona Nicolae and Adriana Cicoare who will visit the Gainaru family. The family lives in a village a few miles outside Craiova. Mother is expecting with her eighth child. The oldest boy in the herd is 16 years old and is in high school. The youngest child has to hang on to his mother for a few more months. Dad has some work occasionally, and the family's livelihood is in reality social benefits.
Due. They have a garden around the house with space for a pigsty and they grow some vegetables for their own use. The house they live in is what Norwegians would describe as dilapidated and so are the outbuildings. Scrap and clutter everywhere and large stacks of winter wood. It is easy to understand that it is a holiday for the youngest kids when Mona and Adriana from the New Start program come to visit.
Simple tool. The two volunteers are the course of people from the Church's City Mission and our people in the Fundatia Adina Foundation in Craiova. The scheme is financed with EEA funds. Mona and Adriana bring with them simple "tools", a book to read from and browse in, a deck of cards, a puzzle and the desire to play with the children. The children get full attention to their premises for two hectic hours.
Selfie. Selfies are read and snapped with Mona's mobile phone, in many ways a very ordinary afternoon in families with a normal family situation and dignified living conditions. There is competition between sisters Aurelia and Roddica for reading skills, and who puts the puzzle together the fastest. Aurelia is also a master of mathematics.
Selfie. Selfies are read and snapped with Mona's mobile phone, in many ways a very ordinary afternoon in families with a normal family situation and dignified living conditions. There is competition between sisters Aurelia and Roddica for reading skills, and who puts the puzzle together the fastest. Aurelia is also a master of mathematics.
Great. Mother and father rejoice with the little girls, and they think it's great to get visits from the New Start women. They do not regard this as interference in the family's "internal affairs." The parents know with themselves that they rarely have time to take care of the children in this way, and they see that this stimulates the children. Unfortunately, in the poorest families, every day has enough of itself.
Invaders. We feel like intruders, but are well received. It is so poor around us that it is incomprehensible that people can live like this, that children have to grow up in such houses and surroundings. In winter they fire in the small rooms, while in summer it is more than warm enough, and good to seek shade under the dilapidated roof in front of the front door.
