Romania

The Daughters of The Holy Ghost, a UK registered charity have built a new Kindergarten in Iugani in the north-east of Romania. Iugani is a small rural village, whose economy relies largely on agriculture and lacks the most basic of services e.g. piped water, drainage systems, decent roads, rubbish collection.

Unemployment in the area is high. A large percentage of families have no steady employment because jobs are scarce, most people find casual labour in the fields, according to the season 5.6 Euros would be the maximum earned for a day at work in the fields. Construction workers earn about 1.68 Euros. The national average is between 142.15 Euros - 199.01 Euros per month. Many adults are having to find work abroad and therefore families are suffering due to the father or mother or both going abroad to work and leaving their children with grandparents, relatives or neighbours. This causes instability in the families, leaving many children emotionally upset and further hardship to their grandparents. The population of Iugani is 2400 of those 340 are working aboard.

The purpose of the kindergarten is to raise the standard of education in the area. The village children have problems when transferring to a school in a town because the standard reached often does not match up to the town school so they are at a disadvantage. The kindergarten has three classrooms and now has three teachers, teaching 46 children each.
The parents are also encouraged to become as much involved as possible to build up a sense of community. The new building also means there are now facilities to provide activities for older children and provide somewhere for them to do their homework in good conditions. They also plan to create a library for all ages, having noticed the eagerness of the children to take a book home to read.

We raised £3,100 which went towards building the water well and school equipment.