Stories written by life

So much accomplished and yet so humble. A wife, mother, grandmother and overall, a woman with a big heart, who made it her goal to help people in need wherever she can. We are talking about Petruta Stanescu, the founder of the Hercules Association in Romania. A project that the Stepic CEE Charity has been supporting and cooperating with since 2015, and which has already helped over 1,000 children escape the vicious circle of poverty.

Since last year, the CEE Stepic Charity has been supporting the project "The House of Hope" in Odessa, Ukraine. For us, this project is a heartfelt opportunity, as many children in Ukraine live on the poverty line and therefore the importance of education is often forgotten. 

We change lives daily. Be it a girl near Sofia living in an informal settlement and dropping out of school early, or a boy in Belgrade who lived his whole life on the street and never had hoped he would turn it around: Thanks to our educational projects, they both have the chance for a more self-determined future.

“I do not think I would have ever had the courage to work without everyone at the Centre motivating me to do it.” Maria is the mother of four children. Her husband suffered a stroke one year ago and is unable to have a job. By the time of the accident, he was the main earner of the family. Maria has not worked a single day in her life, their family attitude being very traditional: The man works, the woman raises the children.

“I’ve never thought my mom would give up drinking and start taking care of us. I feel free to be a kid again, and to do what I was supposed to do long ago. I really want to finish the 8th grade. At the centre I am told I was a quick learner and I do very well in the literacy course. I prefer to learn and write on the board, rather than to care for children. I do not care what anybody says. I want to be proud of my education, and not with of a husband and child.

“I grew up in the placement center for abandoned children in Costesti. Petruta, my ‘’mother’’ – as I like to call her – picked me up from streets, literally, when I was thrown out of the placement center, on a rainy day, because I had just turned 18.

Reka*, 19, from Bódvalenke (Ungarn):”I became pregnant for the first time when I was 13 years old. Now I am already the mother of three kids. My husband is much older and travelling a lot, searching for income for the five of us. He stays with us only during the wintertime, but even then he is not at home very often, because he has to work for the municipality. When I gave birth to my first child in my mother's kitchen, I was absolutely lost.

In a small village, 90km from Serbian Novi Sad, Branko’s* destiny seemed to be heading for the worst. His mother left the family soon after giving birth to the boy, while his father abused him physically and psychologically and was sent to prison because of murder after Branko’s sixth birthday. After various stays in several state institutions, Branko was forced to live with his father again following his release.

“Hello, dear friends from the H. Stepic CEE Charity,