Radio România Internațional

Tag: homeless

  • One Hot Meal, on the Table and Online

    One Hot Meal, on the Table and Online


    For homeless people, for old single people, for poor children, a hot meal a day, or even a week, may be just a dream. In order to help any and all these people, a group of volunteers from Cluj started in 2013 the project named One Hot Meal. Today, 5 years later, the idea was taken over by groups in other cities, offering 900 weekly meals for people who either cannot afford a hot meal or cannot make their own.



    Here is Raimonda Boian, one of the project initiators: “The project has been growing nicely, and the target group and beneficiaries are people from all social categories who lack food. At the soup kitchen I run we cater to people coming to Museum Square in Cluj-Napoca to beg for food. They are homeless people, but also people who have a home, but dont have food. Were not social workers, we dont make social research, we dont question the people who come seeking food. Whats important is that they get fed.”



    Even though One Hot Meal is an independent project, it would not be possible without collaboration with local authorities and the Social Assistance Directorates. Along the years, this collaboration spread from Cluj to Constanta to Adjud, Satu-Mare and Bucharest. The food is procured entirely by donation. Cluj is the place that has the most food distribution points, manned exclusively by volunteers from all walks of life.



    Here is Raimonda Boian: “At the soup kitchen I coordinate in Cluj, I have volunteer teams that registered for up until January 2019. I am sorry and I know I will cause frustration when I have to respond to demands, because I can only run registrations in January next year. Our volunteers also enjoy cooking. Even if they dont know much about it, they still want to participate. I believe its attractive. The activity in itself is pleasant, and the volunteers are not too busy, they make one sandwich at the most.”



    In Bucharest, the One Hot Meal project was implemented by one of the volunteers, Monica Abagiu: “I took over the project in October. I registered as a volunteer in May 2017, then I took over the coordination in Bucharest together with Raluca Apostol. Id long wanted to get into a project like this. I picked One Hot Meal because we like cooking, and also the idea that we could help someone. Also, we had been volunteering in other places before.”



    Monica Abagiu volunteers in addition to various other activities in her life. She said she doesnt have a hard time blending into her existence being a volunteer for the two places where she volunteers for the project. One of them is Cantina Omnis in sector 4, a disadvantaged area in Bucharest. The other is in Ferentari, another problem area in the capital city.



    Here is Monica Abagiu: “The other is a mobile soup kitchen, more precisely an ambulance with a kitchen in the courtyard of a school in Ferentari neighborhood. At Cantina Omnis, the beneficiaries are mostly adults, around 70 up to 100. They come here during the week, but we cook only at weekends. As for the school, we feed the children going there. We have joined Valeriu Nicolae and other volunteers who help children with homework, and we cook for them. We have lots of children with problems, social assistance cases. We have, as I said, between 70 and 100 beneficiaries. We cook there on Saturdays and Sundays.”



    Hot meals twice a week are so sought after by the needy that Monica Abagiu is thinking of expanding the project in other places in Bucharest. She may get help from an offshoot of the project, the ShareFood app.



    George Jiglău, one of the initiators of the project in Cluj, supported the creation of the app, which also aims at combating food waste. Here he is talking to us about it: “This is an app meant to facilitate communication between producers and distributors of food and a community in need of food. In the five years since weve been running the One Hot Meal project, first in Cluj, then in the other cities, we have also made contact with the donors. I am talking about the entities that have more food than they can sell, and this food many times gets thrown away, even though no one wants to throw food away. The app meets the two sides in the middle. It is useful for combating food waste, but it is also an easy-to-use instrument to help collaboration between potential donors and people who need these services.”



    The ShareFood app is aimed at legal persons: on the one hand, potential food donors, companies, and on the other, public institutions, NGOs or parishes that can distribute the food directly to beneficiaries. The creators of the application are two experts from Cluj, who wanted to get involved more deeply after they volunteered to cook as part of the project One Hot Meal. Today, almost two months away from the launch, the ShareFood app is available everywhere in the country, and already has dozens of active accounts, both of the donors and of the beneficiaries.

  • Homeless adults and their stories

    Homeless adults and their stories

    Usually, these people are treated by the so-called ‘normal or ‘integrated citizens with either pity or contempt. Also, they are taken into consideration as a group, although, in reality, they are individuals, like any of us, each of them with their own life stories.



    Sociologist Ciprian Voicila focused on these very stories in his book titled “Street adults. 15 homeless biographies. The book includes interviews with 15 homeless people, and its not a mere sociological study, but an invitation to empathy. As a sociologist, Ciprian Voicila did draw some theoretical conclusions, though:



    Ciprian Voicila: “One common element that all those I have interviewed share is that they are ‘chronic cases, in the sense that they are all over 45, and have spent most of their lives in the street. On average, theyve lived as homeless people for 6 to 25 years. In the meantime, many of them have become alcohol addicts, which is quite understandable. Another common element is that most of them had good jobs during the communist regime, so they can be regarded as collateral damage of the deindustrialisation process. For instance, if they used to work as mechanics and their company was closed down, authorities had no interest in retraining them, so they have become homeless.



    Just like in relation to other issues, official statistics are old and inconclusive. According to a study conducted by Samusocial Romania – a mobility aids service for welfare cases – there were some 5000 homeless people in Romania in 2010. Samusocial also drew up a list of causes that lead to people getting in this situation: divorce or family conflicts, lay offs, the impossibility to pay rent, alcoholism, gambling, but also the fact that many of them grew up in childrens homes.



    Also, many of them have been victims of accidents after which they could no longer provide for themselves. Although some of them manage to integrate into society, many of them do not, so they get to live on the streets. These are the ‘chronic cases described by Ciprian Voicila in his book.



    Ciprian Voicila: “The longer a person lives in the street, the slimmer his or her chances of being socially and professionally reintegrated. Just imagine what it is like, although you may experience dangerous situations, to live freely, without having to pay bills, without having bosses, and having the whole city of Bucharest available for you to take strolls all day long. And thus difficulties emerge when they manage to find a job, as they take as reference point the period of time when they were free, without having to work and to spend several hours in a closed space. But the Samusocial organisation also has many successful stories in store, actually life scenarios about former homeless people who have been recovered. In another move, Ive been told there is a high percentage of homeless people who cant escape the cycle and keep repeating it. For one reason or another, because of disguised depressions or nostalgia for their absolute freedom when they were not subordinated to anyone, many of them give up and no longer go to work.



    Thanks to the Samusocial association we have managed to talk to some homeless people. Mr. Niculescu Călin Niculae is about 60 years of age and has been living in the street for more than 13 years. He ended up in the street following a divorce, when he also lost his home.


    Niculescu Călin Niculae: “I am a metallurgical engineer by profession, and I have also attended post-university marketing-management courses. Each time I was looking for a job, my age was a hindrance.



    Mr Niculescu managed to survive in spite of leading a difficult life in the street, but he is still very sad about something else.



    Niculescu Călin Niculae: “People look down on us, with hatred and enmity, because more often than not they take us for people on drugs and avoid us, but not all of them. This is a positive side of the issue… It is one thing to see an agitated young man going out of a sewer home after taking drugs and a completely different thing to see a normal person like me. I still consider myself a normal man.



    Cristian, now 24 years old, arrived in Bucharest from Tulcea, when he was 17. He tells one of the successful stories of the Samusocial association.



    Cristian: “I have come here because I heard one stands more chances to get employed and evolve a little bit. It was very difficult at first, because I was alone and I didnt know anybody. I lived in the street for a while. It was really difficult, I tried to find shelter in the hallways of various blocks of flats, but the owners used to chase me away, for fear I should devastate the place. So, I only took naps.



    Thanks to NGOs and his wish to lead a decent life, Cristian now has a job and a home.



    Cristian: “There were many people telling me its no longer worth trying to be a good person, that it is better to steal from the rich ones. I told them I believed the opposite was true, that there were many rich people willing to give a helping hand, but if we steal from them, it is commonsensical to believe they will no longer be willing to help. They told me I was a fool for trying to be fair and honest. Samusocial has brought the best change in my life. I was left without ID papers, which had been stolen from me by homeless people. A friend of mine told me about Samusocial who also advised me to go to them. I went there and I received new IDs. Thanks to them I got a job. I still work there, for an NGO, which is recycling paper. I like very much what I do there.



    Its only a beginning, which will hopefully herald new times.



  • Samusocial shows us ‘Who we are”

    Samusocial shows us ‘Who we are”

    Adult homeless people from Bucharest have succeeded in mounting their first painting and graphic art exhibition: “Who are We?. The exhibitors were some of the beneficiaries of the project themed “People Through Art, run by the Samusocial Association from Romania.



    In the special setting offered by the Romana Gallery in Bucharest, 11 of the participants, homeless people, were very happy to exhibit paintings depicting their personal experiences. The paintings were covered in rags before the inauguration, and visitors had the opportunity to unveil them, to discover the universe of those people as well as the secrets of a world that surrounds us, but which we dont have enough time to take notice of.



    The coordinator of the “People Through Art project, visual arts educator Anca Florea, who also works as a volunteer for Samusocial, told us how it all started and how the project progressed.


    “It was my idea to initiate the project, I also wanted to work with other categories of people, to do something which is different from what we normally do. And it seemed to me the homeless have got potential. I met some of those people in private, people who could have done something in the field of arts. And I thought there might be more such people. And then, the idea crossed my mind, to initiate such a project. Then I approached Samusocial and named the project “People Through Art. They already had an occupational workshop project, where all sorts of decorative objects were manufactured. They called some people and we decided to have a workshop focussing on art for arts sake, painting and graphic art. We did some art only for personal development and in order to develop peoples expression capacity and artistic skills. It exceeded my expectations, we found people who were more open and willing to do things.



    The exhibition challenges us to know the others, to discover them as creators of beauty. Taking a look at the exhibited works, we just cannot help wondering who we are and what qualities lay dormant in our psyche. As for Anca Floreas experience with the people who were summoned for Samusocials art workshops, it came out as a telling example of mans ultimate need for beauty. Anca Florea told us something about a man who attended the workshop only once.



    I popped in, one morning, and he was already there, we introduced ourselves to one another. I asked him where he slept overnight and he told me he didnt sleep, he had been walking. Because it was very cold, we had a ringing frost. And that touched me deeply: he had been walking all night so as not to die of cold and yet, he was there. And he didnt complain for a single moment. I gave the workshop assignment, it was a technical assignment, he stopped for a while and suddenly said, ‘give me a sheet of paper so that I can make you a beautiful drawing. And I was so impressed with the fact that that man, having suffered so much, felt the need to do something beautiful. I think all of us have such a need, when we suffer, to compensate with something beautiful. And that seemed to me very relevant for what I do in my workshop.



    We asked Anca Florea what she thought of her students and how she drove them into discovering art :


    I found them really nice. A bit more reluctant, in the beginning. I was a bit more reluctant as well, as I hadnt had such an experience before, it was for the first time when I worked with homeless people. But they were also very perceptive and very open, and with a very pleasant atmosphere in the studio. Which means that I had a good time working with them, we cracked a joke or two, we laughed, we also did our job, I really had a good time in their company and they are the respectful type, they are people with whom you can get on, and with whom you can work. In my guiding efforts, I tried to get each of them find their own direction and their own style, I got them find topics for their paintings and drawings themselves. As thats what a work of art is about, its about putting something of you in there. And I tried to get them initiate their own pursuit and find those things which are important to them. So it was entirely up to them to find topics to that effect. Furthermore, I tried to give them some craftsmanship tips. When I work in personal development workshops I try to get people find their own direction. They have already built their own style. They work together, but they have their own style and I think thats something important, being able to find your own way of expression.



    One of the exhibiting artists is Liviu Lucian Marcu. He spoke about his paintings, which stemmed from his love for life, just like the titles of his works reveal, “The table of noise, or “The cherry-merry scumbag.


    All my life I was a drunkard, I loved life … so, I am somehow the opposite of Brancusi: I am a Moldavian, he is from Oltenia, he has ‘The Table of Silence, I have ‘The Table of Noise. In my mind, that table should have had glasses turned upside down, drunkards, tape recorders, a drunkard sleeping on the table. I couldnt paint them all, since I found it hard to do that, and it also was my first ever such work. I shall further develop it in the near future, I hope. The works I have done, I shall start them all over again. This time Ill be doing the work properly.



    In his turn, Bogdan Florin Ionescu paints faces.


    “I painted people, our folks, people I met in the painting studio. I had never painted before. At first I thought it was some sort of play and I relaxed. While playing, I got to like it.



    Some 20 people turned up for the workshop, but there were not more than 4 of them in the studio constantly, and they were not always the same. As for exhibitors, they were 11, the organizer of the “People Through Art “project has told us. That happens because, at the state-run soup kitchens, people were having their meals served at different times, so they were unable to turn up for the workshops constantly. But when they show up, they put in a lot of joy and thirst for the beautiful when they paint.