“I grew up in the state-run placement centre for abandoned children in Costesti. Petruta (note: the Hercules Centre’s founder), my mother, as I like to call her, picked me up from the streets, literally, when I was thrown out of the centre on a rainy day, because I had just turned 18. Today, I have a daughter, Elena*, who has been coming to the Hercules Centre daily since she was six. My husband left us, and I raise my daughter on my own with my monthly salary of 45 euros. Elena is a good child and has good results in school because she gets help at the Hercules Centre. I would never be able to help her with homework, neither would I have the money for all the books and school supplies, clothes and shoes she needs to go to school and indeed for her life. I really want my child to study so that she does not have to live a life as tormented and bad as mine.” True stories like Magdalena’s**, which are happening just a few miles from our secure homes, strike us with sadness and convince us of our projects’ necessity.
The Hercules Day Care Centre (DCC) hosts around 40 children like Elena, aged six to 14 and living in and around Costesti, a small town in the south of Romania. In order to prevent school failure and dropout, the DCC offers different social and educational services to children from disadvantaged families, families that face extreme poverty and poor living conditions, illness, chronical unemployment, alcohol addiction as well as domestic violence and even child abandonment due to the parents’ emigration. The H. Stepic CEE Charity takes over part of the DCC’s running costs thereby securing its operation.
Supervised by teachers and volunteers, the children do their homework and engage in educational activities such as computer lessons, reading clubs and English courses, which help them overcome their educational gaps. All children are served lunch, the morning shift also enjoys breakfast. Furthermore, families in need receive support in the form of clothing, hygiene products and food.
The DCC’s supervisors take care of not only supplying the basic prerequisites and bettering the grades of the pupils, but also of conveying to them social values and manners. All these activities are meant to at least partly compensate weak spots in the Romanian educational system, which is currently undergoing a redevelopment process. The children are encouraged to think actively and critically and build an argument.
In total, the Hercules DCC not only provides socio-educational support and takes care of the children’s health and physical wellbeing, but also truly makes its little fosterlings less afraid of the outside world and significantly happier. The Charity aims at supporting such sustainable initiatives that make a great effort at evening out the gaps in both the educational and social systems of Eastern European countries.
* Names were changed for data privacy.
** Despite her dramatic financial situation, Magdalena, Elena’s young mother, took another child under her care whom she found living on the street.
