Projects

TEREZA COMMUNITY CENTRE

In 2004 Nightingales Children's Project and the charity 'Two Wheel Appeal' (www.2wheelappeal.co.uk) began planning and fundraising to set up a community centre for the youth of Cernavoda. The centre was open in the summer of 2005 and is a combination of the projects that are running concurrently and the focus of the work the charity has been doing over the years. At the moment we have over 300 members who use the centre weekly.

Activities currently available:

· Dance, football, weights and body training, aerobics, badminton, volleyball, pool & table tennis

In the future we hope to be in a position to offer:

Computer and IT training

Cookery classes

Canteen facilities

We believe that our Community Centre offers the following benefits for the people of Cernavoda:

i) Occupation:

It helps occupy the youth of Cernavoda. A group who, due to the lack of opportunities, the lack of appropriate role models and boredom, often turn to stealing, prostitution, alcohol and drugs for recreation. It provides purpose and structure to teenagers' free time in order to stop them turning to less desirable activities as means of fun. This has a knock on effect on the town of Cernavoda, which should be a much safer place as a result.

ii) Integration:

The Centre enables integration between the different social groups in the town. The problem of discrimination often comes from a lack of knowledge and understanding between two parties. The centre allows youths from all sectors of the community to mix in a relaxed atmosphere. Helping to create a more understanding and less discriminating society. The youth of Cernavoda are the most likely section of society to change and develop new views about the people that they live with in Cernavoda and Romania. Allowing children to mix in a relaxed atmosphere, they will begin to see each other not as a 'Gypsy', 'Turk', 'HIV/AIDS Infected' but as equals and hopefully friends.

iii) Education:

We aim to run programmes that arm the children with social and practical skills that will help them gain employment and chances to break out of the poverty trap in which they currently live. The aim is to expand the range of skills that the youngsters will learn from the centre over time, with assistance from financial benefactors.

iv) Social skills:

Interacting with different groups of people, performing, team work through team games and hitting personal targets in the individual sports.

v) Physical skills:

Basketball, football, climbing, aerobics, weight training, self-defence pool and table tennis. Through these sports they will be learning both co-ordination and the virtues of a healthier life style.

Future:

In partnership with the Cernavoda Town Hall we are currently, at a cost of approximately £1,000, installing a heating system in the Community Centre as at present it can only be open for 9 months of the year.

Once the heating system is up and running, which we hope will be in the early part of 2010, we aim to start:

- A parent and toddlers group;

- Parenting courses for the young mothers in Cernavoda;

- A children's activity club

In 2009, Dauntsey's School and a Nightingales team of volunteers ran activity camps from the centre, which proved to be very successful. For the duration of the camps each day up to 40 young people from Cernavoda came together and participated in a host of activities, from cooking and craft to unihoc and treasure hunts. Nightingales hopes to repeat these camps as for many of the young people from Cernavoda they are the only chance of a holiday. Once the heating system has been installed it will then be possible to expand to these camps to the Christmas and Easter holidays too.

The small membership fee about £2 a year and the cost to use the weights room, £4 a month covers approximately 50% of the £20,000 annual running costs, (salaries, lighting, cleaning, maintenance) of the Centre.  With the installation of heating however, these costs will increase significantly.

We would dearly like to expand the range of activities offered at the Centre, to include Computer and IT training, a cookery class, a cafe selling, amongst other things, products from the cookery classes, and are currently in the process of applying for grants to help fund both the initial set up and the long term running of these activities.  In addition we are in need of further funds to maintain the current equipment, much of which was originally gifted to us when the Centre was first opened.

If you are interested in supporting this project please contact our Treasurer, Gayner Smith at:

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NIGHTINGALES SCHOOL

How it all began

In 1996 when the HIV/AIDS children started their schooling with Nightingales, a child from the town came to ask whether she could also join the school, as her family could not afford to send her to state school. After a week there were 10 children asking to be admitted to these classes.

It became apparent that these were not the only children who were unable to benefit from a state education. A class was set up for these children giving them the opportunity to learn to read and write. The aim of this first class and of the school was to give the less privileged children in Cernavoda a chance of breaking out of the poverty trap into which they were born.

Summer 2004

In June 2004 the first 8 children graduated from the school and after taking the Romanian equivalent of GCSE's, five continued on to the state secondary education system, with two reaching graduation.  One of these is now working overseas, the other works locally as a shop assistant - something that would not have been possible had they not received an education.

Two more children have also transferred from the school into one of state schools in town after displaying they have the ability to be able to cope academically with the state system.

Each of these children receive sponsorship of stationery and clothes that will allow them to attend school everyday, a cost their families cannot afford. This is a great achievement for the pupils and for the school, the children entering back into the system that rejected them for so many years, they can begin to design their own future.

Presently - 2010

The Nightingales school has 2 classes with 18 pupils. The school is split into two different sections, there are 18 special needs children and 30 who wish to study the state curriculum. The children are able to work at a rate which suits them and which is usually slower and more focused than within the state education but have to take exams each year to pass from one class to the next.  

The education department has recently decided that it will no longer accept children from the Nightingales School so the 30 normal needs pupils are not currently receiving an education from us. We are fighting hard against their decision, which does not appear to have any apparent basis, and hope to be able to report a positive outcome to you later on in 2010.  

Previously, our school worked closely with the local education department who supplied all the teachers and provided the pupils with food each day, and when there were funds available once a year the charity took the children on a week's holiday to Mamaia on the Black Sea . For the majority this was the only time of the year they left Cernavoda.  We hope to be back in this position by the end of 2010.

The Future

The charity has seen that over the last few years more and more children are now able to enter into the state system so the school is having far fewer children entering into the first class. But there are a growing number of pupils who are entering from class one and up, children who have failed the school year twice and therefore are inelegible to enter back into state school. The children in many cases suffer from slight learning disabilities. With the small class sizes of the school these children can receive the individual attention they need to continue their education.

Nightingales would dearly like to continue to provide the service for families who cannot afford to send their children to school and we will keep plugging away at the Romanian Education authorities to make this happen.

With the School currently running at half of capacity - ie for special needs pupils only - the running costs are a mere £3,000 per annum.  This covers, books, pens, paper, heating, water and the occasional day trip for educational purposes.  

"CASA FERICIRII" - Home of Happiness

Where the idea came from:

In the charity's work in the orphanage it became apparent that the children being treated and segregated most fiercely were the HIV/AIDS infected children. The charity spent five years battling the Romanian authorities to be allowed to build a home and a school for this group of children. In 1996 the renovation of an old building into three classrooms and a toilet was complete. Each morning 23 children from the orphanage would walk the 100 or so metres to their new school. In September 1998, all the HIV/AIDS infected children living in Cernavoda Orphanage, 21 in total, moved in Casa Fericirii. A new home and the beginning of a new life; where the children could live in a loving family environment. The charity built the home to allow these young children to live out their lives with dignity, with the treatment and the care they deserve.

Presently:

We are now caring for 6 healthy HIV/AIDS infected at Casa Fericirii while 10 of the ex-residents are living independently in the town, with just moral and social support from the charity; in the way parents would for a child who have just moved out of home. At the beginning of the 1990's these children had a life expectancy of their early teens. Now they are in their late teens and early twenties and planning their futures. Nightingales has cared for 26 children in total in Casa Fericirii; 13 children have died in the comfort of their home surrounded by their friends and the people they regarded as family. 5 of the young people are in full-time employment, 3 work part time and 1 is a fulltime mother. The 6 in the home follow a daily programme of activities but are likely to need our continuing support throughout their lives.  It is unlikely that they will ever be able to hold down full time jobs.

When the children first arrived at Casa Fericirii many of them couldn't feed, dress, wash or toilet themselves. In the time since their move, the changes have been immense.  These children have become the young adults they had the potential to be but were not given the chance to become in Cernavoda Orphanage.

The future:

Nightingales would like to see the young people involved in the independent living programme to be completely independently within 5 years.

For the six at Casa Fericirii, it is hoped that an occupation can be found for these young adults, so they are generating a personal income and helping them to integrate into society. Although they will never be able to live independent of care, they are capable of giving to the local community.  Our aim is to grow the activity base within our Community Centre to include cookery classes, work benches, computers and IT courses, so that we can provide these young people with part-time supervised employment.

Nightingales needs approximately £50,000 a year to continue to run Casa Fericirii.