Light for Children

How our work began...

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 in the small village of Dersca. 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 Dersca orphanage and saw 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.

“Having met the children I simply couldn’t forget them” she said. ”They weren’t important to anyone except God and I really felt God was spurring me on to do something to help them. I thought of ways to help them from England, but to me that was like doing half a job. It was all or nothing and I knew God expected my all”.

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.

“I wanted to be a reliable friend to the children and was willing to help with whatever was needed” she said. “Life was not easy – there was a widespread distrust of foreign people so I had to work hard to earn people’s trust and convince them that my only aim was to help the children”

She did not let this deter her from what was to become her life – caring for the children that nobody else seemed to care about. 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 walked the 3 miles each day to visit the children in the orphanage. She spent her days doing lots of activities with the children, offering then friendship and protection and of course, the love which they so craved.

Alongside Helen’s commitment to the children in Romania, her parents applied to adopt Luminita, a little girl who had stayed with them during the Charity visit to England in 1976. Luminita’s special needs would have resulted in her spending the rest of her life in a Romanian Institution. Finally after 4 years of adoption process, Helen’s parents travelled to Romania to bring Luminita home in November 2000. Luminita is now 20 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 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 orphanages within the county of Botosani.

In recent years...

Since 2001, we have continued to support this core group of 25 children in their new homes, which are now as much as sixty kilometres apart. Our priority continues to be to provide them with medication and access to medical care, including the doctor, dentist, optician and speech therapist. If any of the children are in hospital, Helen visits them with food, pyjamas, toiletries and activities to occupy their time. Gaining access to the children in local hospitals was not easy in the early years but we have since built good relationships with the staff and are now made very welcome.

In 2002, Helen married Costel. He grew up in Dersca and having completed his national service in the Romanian army, was employed at the orphanage in the village, where he met Helen. Initially they rented one apartment in Dorohoi as their home, which included a base for their charity work together with a safe place for the young people when needed.

Since 2007, through many fund raising events, Helen & Costel have been able to purchase an additional apartment for their own living space, releasing their 1 apartment for the teenagers to come and spend time together on various activities ranging from doing their homework to spending time discussing issues or simply playing games.

We currently support in excess of 70 children and teenagers. This includes the original group from Dersca who are now aged 16 years upwards and still in state care in and around Dorohoi. Some of the orphanages have closed down and the children were moved into state owned apartment blocks where the children live in groups of 6 – 8 with a rota of carers coming in to look after them. Their living conditions are much improved but the children are still starved of the love of a parent and Helen and Costel fill that role for them as well as providing access to medical care, school equipment, clothing, toiletries, additional food etc. Over the years we have also been able to help a number of local families who either have very poor social circumstances or children with particular health problems.

All of the young people that we work with are befriended by an individual or family in England. As many of them have no or very little contact with their birth families, this gives them a great sense of belonging.

Summer projects...

As well as supporting the children on a day to day basis, over the last six years, we have also organised a number of special projects. Each summer, a group of people who support the charity from England have travelled to Romania to spend time with the children and to encourage Helen and Costel in their work. Projects have included a week long camp in the mountains, craft workshops, dance and drama sessions, sports activities, day trips and decorating a day room on the ward where our HIV+ young people receive their treatment. A couple of years ago, a team from St. John’s Church helped to renovate and furnish an extension for a family with 11 children. We also took on an allotment garden for the first time, to introduce some of our teenagers to agricultural work and the idea of self sufficiency. Recently, a team from Seighford near Stafford redecorated the Charity apartment.

The future...

As the vast majority of our young people do not have contact with their birth families, our concern for them now is very much how they will survive when they complete their education and have to leave the state care system. Helen has set up a work experience scheme and several local employers have agreed to take on our teenagers at weekends or in holidays. We hope that this will broaden their experiences and options for the future.