Vodafone Foundation Encourages Civil Society

Vodafone Foundation starts a second edition of their Voluntar de Profesie project. This year, 15 more volunteers are supported by Vodafone Foundation to work for 6 months in a non-governmental organisation. On the basis of a project written by the person who wants to join a project, Vodafone Foundation pays his/her salary and running costs, if the project gets to be selected. HHC România has been lucky and a very good project was written by a Vodafone employee: Elena Pătîrlăgeanu, based in Ploiești, Client Relations Specialist, is going to be the Hope and Homes for Children Volunteer from September 1st onwards, with the salary paid by Vodafone. Through the project "Look What My Child Has Done", Elena is to develop a volunteering project for the Family Type Homes created by us. In this way, more volunteers, coordonated by Elena, are going to interact with children, and bring into light their qualities and capabilities. Kids who grow up without parents, hardly know the feeling of recognition of their qualities, as it happens in a family, where the parents are there to observe and take notice of the good things the children do.

Through the project, Elena will develop activities for the children with the volunteers, she will create a volunteer database and will promote the activities and their achievement.

Thank you, Vodafone Foundation!. Thank you, Elena Șerban! Thank you, Georgiana Iliescu!

One More Institution to be Closed in Mures County

Zau de Campie is a survival place for children in state care. The institution is in process of being closed, in a partnership between Mures Social Services and HHC Romania. When we started the partnership, there were 70 institutionalized children. Now, there are 33 left. These kids will also be placed either in a real family, or in a family home, by Christmas this year. Many children got back home, to their own families, helped by us. Others, have been supported to become independent. I was particularly surprised at the story of a young girl, Anna, who got a Master"s degree with the highest mark, and now she wants to work on a doctorate in archaeology. An exceptional young girl, who can be such a good example for other children in state care. Given what she has been through, she is an inspiration to me. Linked to this closure project, we initialised a prevention programme, to support children stay with their parents, to prevent them getting into state care. This programme will continue after the institution closure, as it proves very useful for vulnerable families.

Being a real partnership, this project involved another foundation, called Buckner. They developed family services and took in care eight of the children in Zau institution. Mures Social Services also used their resources to a maximum, placing a few kids into their existing family services.

Training is vital. The staff who work with vulnerable children and families should be prepared to the maximum to respond positively to their needs. By doing this work as well, we get to know the members of staff and respond to their doubts, and learn from them as well.

I am happy that Mures is closer to becoming an institution-free county.

The Dependency on the Social System

The youngsters who leave the childcare system hardly adjust to independent living. After tens of years spent in institutions, after years and years of dependency on the system, it is very difficult for them to manage on their own. We should not be surprised. They grow up, without learning how to cook for themselves. Without access to family life, they cannot appreciate the value of a job - and we are surprised when they abandon a job without too much thinking. If you do not see your mother and father coming back from work, every day, carefully spending money from one month to another, you cannot understand you need to save your income until the next one comes. If you do not see your parents going to work, in spite of disease, weakness or inconveniences, you cannot grasp it that work is extremely important and it is not good at all to leave it just because you feel tired, or because you do not want to wake up in the morning. The youngsters who leave institutions do not know how to use a bus ticket. They had not traveled by bus, so they do not know how this is. So simple are the independent living skills they do not have. The skills the system could not offer. Many times, I have seen youngsters abandon a job because their friends told them the salary is small, or youngsters who spent their whole salary on a smart mobile telephone. Employers get more and more reticent, they refuse to employ them any longer, and this is where a vicious circle starts, and yesterday"s institutionalised children become tomorrow"s assisted young adults, by means of social allowances and diverse types of social aid.

When they leave institutions, they have no place to go to. Without a family, without a network of friends, or acquaintances, it is almost impossible for them to get by. For a usual youngster, parents, family, friends - are support and resources when they try to put their life together. Many of us, have been lucky with parents, grandparents, or people in our circle, who offered us help when we needed it.

The youngsters who leave the childcare system get no help at all. They are, literally, in the air. Without shelter, without family, without the skills a family life gives you. So, when they make it in life, this is even more amazing. They do it  on their own, with their own hands. It is them against the world. And when they do not succeed in life, this should come as no surprise to anyone. It is just normal they do not make it. It is almost abnormal when they succeed.

This is another reason why the childcare system in Romania should be based on the family, on the family environment, and children should be considered together with their parents. On this basis, we can create the premises of a system in which those who are socially assisted would also get out, not just stay assisted forever and ever.

Green Light for the National Audit of Social Services

We aim to have a clear image on the childcare system in Romania and we want to know what the assembly of services is for children in state care. We will audit each county social services HQ. The data collection lasts six weeks (spread over July-August-September). In September, we will do the data analysis and synthesis, and in the beginning of October we will have the conclusions and the final report. We will know exactly how many children are still institutionalised, how many old style institutions still exist, how they are organised, how many alternative servcies have been developed in each county, what is the organisational capacity of childcare social services, how much money comes in the system and how it is spent. The data is to be collected on the basis of three questionannaires (one on the analysis of old institutions, be them renovated or not, a second on overall institutional capacity, and a third on finance).

What is new: the children in institutions are directly involved. Their opinion is important for the audit, as well as their suggestions for the system they would want to have. The participants in the audit (managers of social services) will bring their ideas on the table, with their suggestions for a better social system, and these proposals will shape a stand-alone component of the national audit. This exploratory initiative is intended as a constructive contribution for the improvement of social services in the country.

On the basis of the audit results, we will draft the detailed plan for the closure of all state institutions for children in the next few years and we will elaborate a public policy aimed at preventing child abandonment.

Social Benefits: A Reason for Laziness

Social benefits in our country are a sort of "one-in-all" solution for sorting out all social problems needy families have. Let us just give money to everybody, just the same. It is easier and quicker. In fact, the method puts a lot of wood on fire: instead of supporting those families who want to become independent after a difficult time (either because they do not have a job, or a place to live in, or another reason) - it helps people who need just one more reason not to work. Those who benefit from a range of allowances manage to get around 400 RON per month, without moving one finger. So how can we come and suggest they get hired for 500 RON a month? They tell us it is better to stay home for 400 RON, than work for just 100 more. And that is how, once we talk to employers, firms, companies, after we convince them and we think we sort their problems out, they refuse to get the job. And in the same way, the state pays money from the contributions of the few who work, to the many who live on the contributions paid by employees.

The solution is the change in the framework of allocating social benefits, so as to encourage those who have the will to work for sustaining their families. The solution is to diversify the way in which the state grants the money to the needy ones, so as the money reaches those who "need the stick just to be able to fish themselves", and not to those who "want others to fish instead of themselves", as the saying goes.

I think a flexible approach to preventing child abandonment, by diversifying and customising financial allowances, based on the needs of each family - would lead to a more efficient usage of the money the state pays as social benefits.