Radio România Internațional

Tag: living standards

  • At home on the road

    At home on the road

    “This is the most beautiful, the most impressing and the most spectacular book released in Romania this year. It is a journalism book, a collection of some of the best reports Elena and Cosmin have made these 4 years.


    These are the realities of our times, but ones that many of us have had no opportunity to encounter.



    “From their trailer, they managed to do things that I hope will get the attention of the people in power as well. Make them aware that unhappy people also exist.



    “This book may make us sad, but I think it is our duty to read these reports, which are very carefully put together and very well chosen.



    The authors of the book, the journalist Elena Stancu and photographer Cosmin Bumbut, gave up their jobs and their one-room flat in Bucharest, and have been living in a mobile home for 4 years. They did it in order to document Romania in texts and images, without the restrictions entailed by the policies and pace of work in an editorial office. The first project they worked on as free-lance journalists won a grant from Rosalynn Carter Centre and the Independent Journalism Centre, and it focused on Romanians use of physical punishment as a means to educate their children. A survey run by Save the Children organization confirms that 63% of the kids in Romania are subject to domestic violence. In their book, Elena Stancu and Cosmin Bumbut document 2 families living in penury in Mironeasa, a 5,000-people village in Iasi County in the north-east, where most families live on social assistance.



    “This is part of the regular, daily life in a village, in Moldavia as well as in Oltenia, in Transylvania or other regions. Unfortunately, such cases are very common, and weve found similar instances in many other places. Many Romanians are poor, have little access to education, their children are unable to escape this vicious circle of poverty. When we documented the Cojocaru case, I took notes on a beer crate, because they didnt have a table in their house. One of the girls, the only one of the 8 children who was going to school and who liked school, was doing her homework on the bed. The book includes a photo of her trying to write like this. Well, these children will one day be parents, and the only legacy they will leave to their own children will be the poverty they inherited from their parents. These are not exceptional cases, we didnt set out to look for exceptions, we set out to look for Romania. And unfortunately, this is what Romania is. Even if this is hard to grasp from inside our confortable bubble in Bucharest, or Cluj, or Craiova.



    “Three years ago, when we started to work on this topic, we went to poor regions, to penitentiaries, but we also documented domestic violence cases among intellectuals. Those materials have not been edited yet or posted on our website, teleleu.eu. But we found similarities. For instance in Baia Mare we talked to a convict coming from a family with many kids. He told us about the beatings his father used to give them, going to extreme levels, such as his father dangling him over the balcony rail and threatening to kill him. We heard the same story from the daughter of an architect in Bucharest.



    Maria Ionita, one of the women whose story was presented by Elena and Cosmin on their website www.teleleu.eu, died this summer. She had been frequently beaten by her husband in front of their 9 children, taken by social workers to hospital several times, and she seemed doomed to die, in a country where “no one interferes with other peoples families, as Elena Stancu puts it.



    “We wrote on Facebook that the other women in the village, also subjected to domestic violence, complain to social workers using the words, ‘Well end up like Maria Ionita. And recently we were contacted by someone from a shelter for domestic violence victims, who said they wanted to work with the social assistants there. OvidiuRo Association went to that community and implemented a kindergarten programme. A friend of ours, who had read the Mironeasa story, collected toys and school supplies and sent them to those children. But this is not a solution for social problems. What we need is a national programme, a well-designed strategy to tackle these systemic issues.



    During the 4 years they have been living in a trailer, Elena Stancu and Cosmin Bumbut have talked to inmates, victims of extreme poverty and violence, people with disabilities and special needs, and marginalised Roma people. The famed writer Mircea Cartarescu once said “Elena and Cosmin are my heroes. They have set out to look for real life and real people, which can be found not in the standardised and tamed world in which we, culture consumers, live at present, but rather in extreme poverty, in dilapidated houses, in unbelievable violence, in God-forsaken communities, in prisons and ghettos. Cosmin Bumbut told us more about their experience.



    “The country is as you can see it in our book. And yet we are optimistic. Because among the people we have met, photographed and interviewed, there are also good people. We started out with a lot of fears, but we were well received by everybody. Everybody criticises the Roma people and accuses them of doing nothing to improve their lives. The supreme argument of those who judge gipsies is, look, we did something with our lives, we went to college, we have good jobs, so they should be like that, too. But as weve seen during these 4 years, not everybody can do it. What Im trying to say is that there is optimism in what weve seen. But we have to face the facts: Romania is as we describe it in our book, not as we see it on Facebook or as we imagine it to be from our comfort zone. (Translated by A.M. Popescu)

  • The Paradoxes of Diminishing Poverty in Romania

    The Paradoxes of Diminishing Poverty in Romania


    10 years after Romania joined the EU, the country made significant progress in addressing poverty. In 2007, 47% of Romanians lived under the poverty threshold, but in 2015, that figure went down to 37%. These figures are calculated based on a statistical index called AROPE, measuring both annual income and assets. This means that, in the last few years, more Romanians could afford appliances, mobile phones, as well as eating meat every other day, or go on vacation once a year. The Romanian branch of the Friedrich Stiftung Foundation, with its Social Monitor project, analysed the data gathered since the EU accession, and drew conclusions regarding poverty. Victoria Stoicioiu shared them with us:



    Victoria Stoicioiu: “You can see with the naked eye that more people today own mobile phones and colour TVs than in 2007. These goods went down in price, and contracting a loan is much easier. So, if we look at this index, we can see that poverty went down significantly between 2007 and 2015. Romanians are doing better.”



    However, the Social Monitor revealed a paradox as well: while Romanians overall are faring better, for some it has been getting worse. If we look at income alone, the money that people have on hand, we can see that poverty has actually been on the rise. More to the point, there was a rise in people with incomes below 60% of the national average. In 2015, the figure reached 25% of the population, from 18% in 2007. Victoria Stoicioiu goes into detail:



    Victoria Stoicioiu: “The poorest 10% of Romanians live in rural communities, and they are generally people who make a living practicing subsistence agriculture. No progress has been registered in this respect. In 2007, the poorest 10% of Romanians were making 556 Euro annually. I am talking about income, not salary, income that can be obtained by selling homemade products, such as eggs and cheese, etc. In 2015, the incomes of the poorest reached 714 Euro per year, which is insignificant. Approximately 2 million Romanians live on 714 Euro annual incomes.”



    Iulian Angheluta is the head of Free Miorita Foundation, and he talked to us about poverty in mountain areas. The foundation took on a difficult issue: to bring electricity to Romanian villages that have none. There are many such areas in Romania still, and the most affected in this respect are the most isolated areas, villages and homesteads in the mountains. He described for us the living conditions there:



    Iulian Angheluta: “They have unpaved roads, and water sources are mostly mountain springs. There is no electricity. In most areas of the Apuseni Mountains, in the mountain parts of the counties of Hunedoara, Maramures and Bistrita Nasaud, there is no wiring for electricity. There are plans, and the so-called feasibility studies. In addition, in many of those places they dont have the minimum necessary elements for a civilized life, such as a school or a clinic. They practice subsistence farming. Most people have a few animals in their yard, mostly cows and sheep. The forest is a source of firewood, as well as mushrooms and berries.”



    For these people, electricity would provide a minimum of comfortable living, but would also bring them out of isolation. Iulian Angheluta and his Free Miorita colleagues have provided a few isolated communities with solar panels, thinking first and foremost of the children in those communities:



    Iulian Angheluta: “Any household needs people who can work. Whether we like it or not, children are workhands. They take the sheep to pasture up in the mountains, or help their parents in various other ways. Their life is hard. Education is relegated to the background. Which is why I think electricity is very important. It is very important for children when they want to do homework, but also when they want to get informed and educated. They would have access to radio and telephone services, including for accessing emergency services, such as ambulances.”



    The situation of children and young people compared to that of older people is one of the paradoxes that emerge out of the analysis of poverty, according to Victoria Stoicioiu, representing the Friedrich Stiftung Foundation:



    Victoria Stoicioiu: “While Romania has made progress when it comes to reducing poverty and social exclusion among the elderly, progress has been more modest among young people. Poverty went down by only 6% between 2007 and 2015 for the people below 16 years of age. The pace has accelerated a lot. A possible explanation is that in 2009, the government passed a measure that contributed decisively to reducing poverty among the elderly: introducing the minimum social pension. At this point it is a mere 415 lei. And although 400 lei cannot provide a decent living, it is much better than it was before.”



    Civil society is trying to fill the gap left open by the lack of social protection policies. For instance, Free Miorita has provided 78 households in 15 counties with solar panels. In the last year, they also provided electricity to four schools and two churches.


    (translated by: Calin Cotoiu)