Supporting Holding Out Hope

A recent trip in July 2006 by Jenny Rochford and Kate Lewis, both Thornbury residents was funded by a 10k run that they did in London, which raised £767.00.

Jenny and Kate organised trips out for the children at Brincovenesti, they bought art and craft materials for the children’Äôs unit in Reghin, they bought food and medical supplies for ‘Anna’ and her family in the forest and they bought food, nappies and medical supplies for the abandoned children at St George Du Parure.

Last Easter the unit in Reghin was tying children up to stop them running away. Jenny and Kate took over a stair gate, so now the children no longer need to be tied and can now run around and play freely.

Our practical help at St George has extended to completely refurbishing the unit within the last three years. We have put in new bathrooms and toilets and a new kitchen. We have also replaced all of the mattresses and sanded down and varnished all of the cots, so the unit has been completely transformed.

Our volunteers come from various religious denominations, however we do not consider the charity to be based on any particular religion, however ‘love thy neighbour’ does spring to mind when we think about what we are trying to achieve.

We have employed a social care assistant at St George who is doing some wonderful work with the children. They now receive constant stimulation and are not just left in their cots to rock. In October we will renew this lady’s contract. We have now employed her for nearly 18 months and her input is making a massive difference and improvements to the lives of the children.

Our latest project is to build a small house for an extremely poor family, who live in the middle of a forest with their severely disabled daughter. We have two volunteers out in Romania at the moment, which will make sure this family home undergoes some temporary repairs, whilst we fundraise (£8,000) to build this house in 2007.

We avoid sending volunteers over to Romania, if all they are going to do is ‘experience’ the harsh realities of a country that in some areas is still in the middle ages. They can read books about that.

What we want is for volunteers to go over and make a difference and to hold out some hope to these people in a practical way.

Many of the larger charities no longer support Romania as their focus has now gone elsewhere. We will continue to ‘chip away’ in any way that we can. Doing something is better than doing nothing. Brincovenesti Castle are currently writing a book about their history and I am pleased to say that Holding Out hope features in it. We have been a big part of their history and we also intend being part of their future.