"What would you like to get for Easter?" "Potatoes..."

Article taken from "Observatorul buzoian"

Written by Sorin Dinco and Ciprian Sterian

Toma’s family courtyard in Cârligu Mare looks like a pile of garbage and on top of the pile two children are sitting quietly. A five year-old and a six-year-old. They seem to be lost in the dust. When Father Tudor, who accompanies us through the maze of poverty in the village, asks them how they are, they go into the garden. Their mother, Rodica Toma (32 years), takes a broom lying on the floor and starts sweeping. Perhaps the mound of dirt grew there because of all that sweeping in the yard. She doesn’t greet back. "Are you upset with us, that we don’t get to talk?", asks Father Tudor. The woman carries on with her work. Children are running in circles in the garden, with their heads bowed. Their movements are somewhat meaningless. The little one has wet crotch pants, the older one looks from time to time to the priest, who barely gets the woman to talk. Near the mound, two broken wheels of a tricycle are the only toys for these children. "Where's your husband? Look, these people came all the way here to show the world the condition you are living in. In what way do you want the people to  help you?". She laughs and says something incomprehensible. We also try, and, in gibberish, she says a few words. "Do you have food in the house to give these children someting to eat today?". She nods that she does. "What?" "Potatoes..." replies the mother and "potatoes" is the only word that sounds clear and fills the yard.

„It broke your heart to see them…"

Home sweet home

A year ago, when the county authorities were interested in the fate of the two boys, they decided to take them in foster care. Then, this almost silent and indifferent woman, burst into cries of despair and snatched the children from the arms of social workers. "They were holding them tight in their arms, she and her husband, screaming that the children belonged to them and they don’t want to give them away to anyone. It broke your heart to see them".  How else? However, children do not attend kindergarten and they eat unhealthy food. Clothes, toys, food would help considerably. The two little beings lack something fundamental. Even after we left, as if we hadn’t been there, the little one kept running in circles, following his brother. Sun seems to be their only light.

 

"Yes, veeeery good!"

"They gave us a packet of cheese ..."

 Hunger is on the agenda, strengthens or divides families in need. In another courtyard, where Marian Oprea (27 years) lives with four children, the grandmother says that when they all gather, she counts 15 grandchildren. They have two acres of land, a pig and some birds. They say they have a horse, too, but half-heartedly, with fear because should they declare their assets, then they will no longer get any social benefits. One of the nieces returns from school and heartily eats a croissant.  She tells us, with a voice as if she has seen Santa Claus, that the children at school were given a packet of cheese. Was it good? "Yes, verrryyyyy good". Her brothers and her cousins ​​confirmed it. Father Marian Tudor assures us that this is a more united household, who cares for its children.

God gave her more days than doctors

As united as the Toma family is the home of Steluţa Neculae, Claudia Marinela’s mother, a girl who is immobilized in bed. With aid from the church, Father Tudor has managed to provide the girl a wheelchair, so that she can go out in the yard. Her mother tells us: "When she was little, she once had a fit of crying. I said that this required baptism and we had her baptized. Then, when she was only two and a half years old, I went all by myself to see doctors, not knowing what was wrong with her. Then, being so tired, I demanded one doctor to tell me at once what problem my daughter had. He didn’t want to tell me and I screamed at him, telling him I could not run from one place to another anymore, and there was no sign that my daughter was getting better. Then, the  doctor told me: "Look, Mrs. Neculae, I did not want to tell you because I did not want to upset you, but your daughter is physically disabled and will not be well again. I don’t know if she has the chance to live until her eleventh anniversary..."  When I heard those words, I didn’t know what was going on with me. I looked at that doctor and all I could see was the movement of his lips. I walked for days like a mad  woman..."

"When they told me what she had, I didn’t know what was going on with me ..."

Indeed, hope is a disappointment postponed

Marinela is 17 and likes to play with children. Nobody gives her a chance of recovery, but her parents think there might be one. Her mother received three million lei from the Romanian government, for taking care of her. Now, she was announced that she would become unemployed, because there was no more money. "However, they gave us the money in December, after not receiving the money since June. You see her?..." (the girl can move only her head – she is still able to laugh and say some words), "and I had to take her with me every year to go and renew her certificate of disability, because they thought she might have got well in the meantime ... If only she had!". Marinela needs diapers,  tights and a special recovery program . If God has given more days than doctors, parents still hope.

 She is only 29 years old, has three children and she’s not allowed to work

Ioana is a 6th-grade pupil who does not dare to dream of a future. This seems like a bad dream that never ends.

Marian Bunea’s wife, Monica, is 29 years old and an accident rendered her unable to work and financially support their three children. She was hitchhiking to go in the city to do some errands when their car was hit by another car because of the glazed frost. She recovered from coma with difficulty, but remained in pain and with memory loss.

Her eldest daughter, Ioana Florentina, is in the 6th grade and has only good grades. She likes to read. Seven souls share the same room, although it can barely fit two beds, a table and a stove. No shelf on which to put a book. Ioana goes to library to borrow books. Upon leaving, the husband asks us to help with a disability pension for his wife: "She can’t work all her life. We have debts everywhere, I must leave the country to work somewhere. I have been gone before, but I left them alone and it was awful."

Watch in tomorrow's edition Father Tudor’s plans to build a social canteen in Cârligu Mare.

Help these children in every possible way you can by contacting the priest Marian Tudor by phone 004-0720.281.634 or by  e-mail parohiacarligumare@yahoo.com. Visit the Facebook page "Copiii din Glodeanu", Buzău.

It feels like Japan’s tragedy in Buzău

Living in desperate situations, the children in Cârligu Mare need our help
 

Cârligu Mare Village, Buzău County. Somewhere in the limits of Bărăgan, on the alleys of the village, sometime before the Annunciation, a few children return from school. Among the shattered houses, who seem to run-down hill after their masters who are gone by now, the church’s steeple is in plain sight. Father Marian Tudor awaits us at the gate, dressed in his priestly robe. He took over the parish a year ago and ever since that moment his mission amidst the Cârligu Mare people has become a long series of terrifying encounters.

The poverty, the illnesses, the hunger, the cold, the wicked hostile childhoods, the unfortunate families are his real job, his mission. Having learned about these cases from a message found on a social network, we have decided to move on to the details. What should we visit first? The most desperate case? The poorest family? Those two savage children, brought up by their mentally ill mother and father? The girl who was diagnosed by doctors with 11 years of live when she was 2 years old, but who was stubborn enough to catch her eighteenth birthday being all bedridden? Or perhaps the shanty where  the boy taken in placement was found frozen last winter?

Maybe we should go to the poorest family... but how can you tell which of them is? We take a look on the left side of the road, then on the right and we leave it to chance. No matter where you go, you can sense the sadness that reigns there, slightly warmed by a ray of springtime’s sun.

We choose one end of the village ... (the goal of this journalistic material is intended to draw attention to the desperate situation of Cârligu Mare and to sensitize people who want to provide aid).

’’Father, do you have diapers for the little ones?..’’

Cârligu Mare was once a real commune. Now, the village belongs to Glodeanu Siliştea and its greatness has been lost, leaving a scattered village in the plains. Near the foundations of ruined houses, children are playing with bugs. One may see a fatty rat pass by, from time to time, from a hole to another. At the latticed windows of a shack, two children are standing almost naked, and the cries of a baby are heard from inside the house. We enter the courtyard, accompanied by Father Tudor and immediately a woman, who looks as if she hasn’t been sleeping a good night sleep in years, comes before us: "Father, welcome! Do you have diapers for the little ones?..."

The 28 year-old woman’s name is Steluţa Andrei and she has seven children. A boy is in hospital, other three children are still in school. The 6 year-old boy was diagnosed with epilepsy after having undergone a hernia surgery. However, all seven require medical assistance. Father Tudor tells the woman the reason I came there. "Perhaps, if the newspaper writes about you, people may hear our story and help us ..." She is asked what they mostly and vitally need. She stands and looks confused, as if she has no idea where to begin to talk. The children looking at us out of the window are swinging the window bars smilingly. Their mother replies that they need clothes, diapers, food. If they could provide some toys, too... She apologies for not having invited us in the house: "I started to clean up and whitewash, Easter is coming." The priest tells her to come to church and get more whitewash there.

Read in the following editions of the newspaper the story of two savaged siblings who live with their mentally ill mother. Potatoes are their only food.

Earth – that was once one’s family’s food provider – was abandoned due to the lack of money for the farmland works.

Steluţa Andrei and her husband have a hectare of land. Last year they were not able to plow because they didn't have the money for the farm work. Sometimes, her children’s meal consists of cornmeal mixed with sugar water. Father Tudor assures us that the problem of the land left fallow affects several villagers. They plow just to have something to feed the few fowls in the yard. In the village there are about 160 families, half of which consist of a single person, old and forgotten by the rest of the people. In contrast, young families are facing unimaginable hardships for a modern man. If you hear them, you’d say they are from another continent. Neither the day laborers can work because there’s nothing left to make a profit. Some may accept an egg or a piece of bread from the elders that need to get some help around the house. Lacking any possibility of local employment, wallowing in debts and being bound to the land, young parents resemble some feeble grandparents. Their children get to know, from an early age, the misery of the world they are born in, a world in which they will have to get through. The real crisis starts from that moment. But in how many Romanian villages you don’t find people who share the fate of the people in Cârligu Mare?

In a future edition, we will present the case of the girl who is about to celebrate her adulthood bedridden. Doctors had given her no hope of life or 11 years.

"Comfort and gratitude" among rats

Through the Romanian Patriarchy’s program "Comfort and gratitude ", Father Marian Tudor has found out about the problems of several villagers from Cârligu Mare. Every Wednesday, he waits for them at church, listens to their troubles, and every Friday, the priest visits their homes. "Firstly, we posted a humanitarian appeal on an internet forum because I did not know how to help them better. So many cases can be very overwhelming. Sometimes I buy bread for them, as much as I can. We also need to patch the parish house because there are so many rats damaging the place. I don’t complain . The rats have dug the whole village, they are everywhere, and they are more fatty than men", tells Father Tudor.

The priest’s intention is to build a social canteen in the former town hall. Stay tuned for details of the project in which you can also get involved.

"Social network" in Cârligu Mare

"Then, someone from the press in Bucharest created a Facebook page," the priest continues the story of "socialization" of Cârligu Mare. "Step by step, assistance and contribution began to emerge: food, vegetables, fruit, sweets, toys, clothing, from simple people, not from public figures that would only make something just for the sake of being mentioned, but people who drove all the way here, with the trunk of their cars full of packages for the children and villagers. I was amazed by how much was done for them with only an advert. But it’s still not enough. People come, give, leave, and the difficulties and misfortunes remain’’. I asked him if he had disturbed his parishioners by turning their destinies upside down: "Well, at first they said I was taking pictures of them putting them on the Internet to sell their children. But, people talk, and when I ask them why they did it, they reply that they didn't or didn't mean to say that. I get along  with them very well. Some people understand and recognize that there is no humiliation in allowing others to help you when there's no other help at hand. "

Watch in future editions on www.observatorulbuzoian.ro other stories about the troubles of Cârligu Mare:

The Buneas deal with a tragedy in their family. Due to an accident, the mother suffers from memory loss. At 27 years old, she lost any hope that she would ever be able to work.

In a hut sprayed with cement, Marian, a boy who doesn't know his birth mother, was found living in cold and hunger until he was taken into foster care.

Help the children there in any possible way you can. Contact priest Marian Tudor by phone 004-0720.281.634 or by e-mail, parohiacarligumare@yahoo.com.

Article taken from the newspaper "Observatorul buzoian"
Written by Ciprian Sterian and Sorin Dinco, translated by Andreea Olteanu

The Story of 32 children

Although Romania is a member of the European Union many people are not aware that some parts of the country are in total poverty. Sadly, most people do not know the poor conditions that thousands of children live in every day in Romania. Statistics show that almost half (44%) of the population lives in poverty or in absolute poverty with less than £1 per day to survive on

Below you will find more details about 32 children that are starving every day and live in extreme poverty with their families. In this article we would like to highlight their story and we hope that our actions will make a difference and bring some light in their gloomy lives.

Have you ever seen a child suffering from hunger? There are 32 children suffering from hunger day by day in Glodeanu village, Romania. Every day is a Big Challenge for parents to provide food for the family. If they are able to provide a slice of bread or ‘polenta’ (which is a dish made from boiled cornmeal) this is an extraordinary event, because many days pass without the hope of any meal. These children have hardly seen meat on their table or a hot meal.

Last year, a miracle happened when Marian Tudor, a an Orthodox priest, moved to their village. In his compassion and kindness, he has been trying to help them.

Last winter, Father Tudor, posted a humanitarian message and joined a forum on the Internet with the purpose of getting some clothes and food for the little souls from Glodeanu village. The story of these kids was heard by Maria Coman, a Romanian journalist. She made the story public and last Christmas more people joined in and brought some joy (food, clothes and some toys) to these children.

The priest wholeheartedly wishes to set up a soup kitchen in the village that would improve their lives. For this purpose, he has identify a building in the village which, whilst in poor conditions, (the old village hall), can be restored and turned into a soup kitchen. The priest has the mayor’s support. At this canteen they will be able to eat a hot meal every day, play with other children and do their homework. We believe that through this project their life will improve dramatically .

You can support these children the way you want. Every little help will be greatly appreciated!

You can donate some money (via PayPal), pass on their story to your friends by sending an e-mail to all your friends, relatives, work colleagues or post the link of this blog on Facebook or any other social networks to make their story known to other people.

Also, you can choose to give your long-term support to one child or one family. As if it were your little brother or sister born with fewer chances than you have. Some children are ill. Epilepsy and strabismus are a few of the illnesses that these children are suffering from and the parents can’t afford to buy the medication they need.

*If you decide to help a child, you will receive monthly pictures/news about them and the way you contributed. Maybe one day you will decide to meet them in person and we will facilitate this with enthusiasm.

In collaboration with Nicoleta Tintea and Father Tudor we have decided to reach out to these children and help them. Not only have they need for food and clothes, but also we want to identify some long term opportunities for their development.

If you want find out more details about them, please contact Angela Popescu angela.popescu32@gmail.com/ 07593582898 or Catalin Leonard Popa catalinleonard@gmail.com and we will be happy to get in contact with you.