Located in
southwestern Bucharest, the district of Ferentari has over the years came to be
synonymous with squalor, poverty, violence, extreme instability, which have
become widespread due to subpar living standards. The district is home to a
large Roma community and it very much resembles a ghetto, as its inhabitants
seldom go beyond the tangible and symbolic boundaries of the neighborhood to
seek a better life elsewhere. The solution would therefore be to improve the
lives of the people inside the ghetto, something which Valeriu Nicolae has been
doing for over 10 years. A computer scientist with work experience in the
United States and Canada, the founder of the first think-tank on Roma issues in
Romania, a member of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
regional advocacy director of World Vision International and a Secretary of
State in the Romanian Government in 2016, Valeriu Nicolae has constantly
militated for the rights of the underprivileged.
Having himself emerged from a disadvantaged
background, being a Roma ethnic, Valeriu Nicolae is familiar with the problems
of the marginalized and knows how important it is for children, above everyone
else, to be given the opportunity of leaving the ghetto. This is why back in
2007 and 2008, together with a group of volunteers he started working in one of
the schools in Ferentari, helping children do their homework. The school was
located in the vicinity of the so-called Drug Alley, a place where a minimum
of 50 people are struggling with withdrawal in plain sight on a daily basis,
Valeriu Nicolae says. Municipal waste, rats, cockroaches, 14-square-meter
studios where up to 6 people live packed, all of that adds to the reality the
people of Ferentari are facing, a reality Valeriu Nicolae is helping them cope
with. With the volunteers’ tenacity and help, in the summer of 2019 children in
the district would come to school to get help with their homework, taking up as
many as 5 classrooms, Valeriu Nicolae recalls:
We would help
them do their homework, and we did a lot of extra stuff as well: we obtained
disability certificates for some of their parents, we helped people in bad
shape, from people who needed a dentist or heart surgery up to polypectomies,
dental extractions or orthodontic treatments. We tried to help out the best we
could. Nearly every child we worked with was on the brink of dropout. None of
them gave up, and now from over a hundred children only a couple are struggling
with school. Before everything was a disaster. As soon as they got to the fifth
grade, most of them dropped out. Now we have children who go to high school, so
the situation has definitely improved. We’re also giving them hot meals.
The place was
running smoothly, maybe too much so, as the District 5 City Hall decided to implement
its own social assistance programme at that school, thus eliminating the
activities designed by Valeriu Nicolae and his team of volunteers. But Valeriu
Nicolae didn’t give up and set up the so-called Good House. In a nearby
building close to his home, located close to the district of Ferentari,
children are brought over from the ghetto for afterschool activities. Built
with the generosity of donors and volunteers who worked selflessly to get the
place up and running, the Good House opened one month after the venue was purchased,
in the autumn of 2019. Valeriu Nicolae:
We bought two
vans, and with the volunteers’ private vehicles we brought the children over
every weekend, as it was a lot better. We had as many as 100 children. The Good
House is a place where we can do everything we want. We set up a great library,
and things are looking up. We’ve got a lot of help, for instance from famous
chefs who come here to cook for the children.
Things again
were running smoothly, up until the state of emergency was called, due to the
coronavirus pandemic. Schools were shut down and lockdown became the norm.
Children can no longer get to the Good House. Still, Valeriu Nicolae has come
up with solutions:
Children were
making progress, and we couldn’t just call off the activities. Therefore I
started setting up computers and hotspots all over the ghetto. I was donated a
number of unlimited Internet access accounts, and I got hold of a bunch of
older phones from various people. We moved very quickly, and I got back to my
old job as a computer scientist, and managed to install everything that needed installing.
We got the terminals up and running and fitted them with educational software.
Now we have over 50 volunteers who work every day online with these children.
They stay and work from their homes, and we keep the children connected.
In the ghetto
present-day restrictions, in addition to the suspension of multiple economic
activities, make it hard for many people to get on with their lives. Valeriu
Nicolae and his team of volunteers are getting however donations from various
companies, and are providing local people with dairy products, bread, various
foodstuffs, coffee and tea.
We manage to
cover the necessary food supplies. Many people in the district lost their jobs.
But since the lockdown was called, our families are ok, we’re managing to cover
their needs. I hope we will continue to do so, but things are getting rough for
the people. Although the people know me, even drug users, sometimes things get
out of hand, as the addicts need food as well. They know I’m coming to help the
children, but they need food too. Domestic violence has also gone up, and so
have all sorts of abuse. Unfortunately, no one cares to put an end to such
things in a place like Ferentari.
Valeriu Nicolae
estimates that Bucharest alone is home to a few dozen underprivileged children
who lack access to online educational resources, and who might get behind with
school during the lockdown and might eventually drop out.
(Translated by
V. Palcu)