Light for Children

In 1996, Helen was required to study local/global politics as part of her degree course. As a case study, she chose to use a local charity which had been founded to help children in a Romanian orphanage. That year, the charity brought a group of children aged between 6 and 9 years to England for a holiday. Two of the girls were hosted by Helen’s parents.In April 1997, Helen visited the children in their own country for the first time, where they were clearly malnourished, mistreated and unloved. Some were HIV+ and Helen felt very strongly that she should do more to help them. By that time, she was employed by the Benefits Agency in England, but returned to the orphanage for a month later that summer and again the following year, before eventually moving to Romania on a full time basis in October 1999. Until that time she had funded her own trips but from that point became dependent on support received from St John’s Community Church in Chase Terrace, Staffordshire, as well as from family and friends.The children were desperately short of food, medication, clothing, footwear and educational materials. Helen lived with a Romanian family in the village of Dersca and visited the children each day with what they needed. She also offered them friendship and protection.In November 2000, Helen’s parents travelled to Romania for the first time. Following the children’s visit in 1996, they had applied to adopt Luminita, one of the girls whom they had hosted. She had special needs and their main concern was that she would have to spend the rest of her life in an institution. The adoption process took four years but was eventually completed in 2000. Luminita is now 18 years old and very much part of her new family in England, where she has made amazing progress.During the summer of 2001, the orphanage in Dersca was closed as part of a national restructuring of the child care system in Romania. The children remained in state care but were moved to a number of different institutions within the county of Botosani.