SOS Children in Romania
SOS Children began its vital work in Romania following the fall of the Communist regime in 1990. Many children lose their families when parents travel abroad in search of a better income. At the same time, Poor healthcare and child exploitation makes Romania a precarious place for children growing up.
You can help orphaned and abandoned children in Romania by sponsoring a child online with us:
A country abandoned by its people
Progress has been slow and punctuated by regression since the fall of Communism in 1990. Many do not see improvement at all. A burgeoning economy was hit hard by the 2009 crisis, and recovery has been gradual. Healthcare is underfunded and under-resourced and staff shortages are exacerbated by people seeking a better life abroad. Meanwhile, HIV/AIDS blights many children of the 1980s, when orphans were routinely injected with contaminated blood as a food substitute.
A lonely childhood
Children still suffer infection today. When parents move abroad in search of a better income for their families, many children end up on the street. There, they are exploited for commercial gain in the sex trade, or exposed to drug culture, with both leaving them them vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. Children who stay in the family face violence at home, a common result of poverty. Again, many children are taken out of their homes and placed into care to protect them from abuse. Many do not make it through to adulthood.
Our Work in Romania
We began working in Romania in 1990 when the downfall of Communism revealed to a horrified world thousands of handicapped and orphaned children living in appalling conditions. An agreement was signed between SOS Children and the Romanian government to build two SOS Children's Villages, which both opened in 1993.
Bucharest
SOS Children's Bucharest community is near the city centre on the edge of Lake Floreasca. Many young children live here and an SOS Youth Home provides a residential setting in which older children are guided towards a prosperous and independent adult life. An SOS Nursery allows infants from the Village and the community to mix in a safe and loving setting, aiding community cohesion and ensuring a harmonious upbringing for orphans and other local children. We also run a mobile SOS Playbus which travels through Bucharest, stopping at various diverse locations around the city to encourage play and offer new experiences dance, theatre and crafts.
Cisnadie
Our Village in Cisnadie is near the city of Sibiu, about 300 km north-west of Bucharest, between the Transylvanian Alps and the Carpathians. Cisnadie has an SOS Youth Home where older children can acclimatise to adult life and take their first independent steps. An SOS Nursery supports families from the local community as well as children from the Village, encouraging the interaction and close contact which will aid social cohesion in later life, and helping parents who struggle to look after their children alone.
Our community outreach programme extends a helping hand to state schools and nurseries which struggle with resources from writing materials and food parcels. We believe a secure upbringing and a better education can help the children of Cisnadie overcome the hurdles of previous generations.
Hemeiusi
SOS Children recently took over a children’s village in Hemeiusi which was originally run by a Dutch charity. Our Hemeiusi Village is situated in Moldavia, one of Romania's poorest regions. The local nursery and schools are insufficient and in poor condition, and we work hard to give children what they need for a rich childhood and a successful adult life.
For more information about the work we do in Romania, see our page, Romanian Orphans.
Local Contact
SOS-Satele Copiilor Romania
National Coordination Office
Calea Floreasca
Nr 165, cod 014459
Sector 1, Bucuresti
Romania
Tel: +40/21/668 00 77, +40/21/668 00 90
Fax: +40/21/668 00 72
e-mail: sos@sos-satelecopiilor.ro
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