Radio România Internațional

Tag: society

  • Philosopher Mihai Sora

    Philosopher Mihai Sora

    Philosopher and essayist Mihai Sora has recently passed away in his home in Bucharest. Sora was one of the Romanian intellectuals who had outlived several political regimes. Sora was also a witness of the great changes that marked the 20th century. His substantial work aside, Sora also compelled recognition for several other performances, still unparalleled to this day. If a classification of the longest-living writers were to be compiled, Sora would definitely have a place in the upper echelon. Very few human beings can boast having lived 106 years. Another feat could be the year of his birth. Sora was born when World War One was in full swing, while at the end of the war Greater Romania came into being, in 1918. Mihai Sora even used to say I am older than Greater Romania. Another feat was the publication, in 1947, by the Gallimard Publishers in Paris, of his volume Du dialogue intérieur. Fragment d’une anthropologie métaphysique. (On the Inner Dialogue. Fragments of a metaphysical anthropology). Sora was the first Romanian to have seen one of his books brought out by the posh French publisher. Sora is also one of the oldest protesters: at the age of 100, Mihai Sora joined the protesters who mounted antigovernmental protest rallies in Bucharest’s Victory Square in 2017.



    Mihai Șora was born in November 1916 into the family of a priest, in Banat, then one of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’ provinces with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population. He read Philosophy and Classics with the University of Bucharest. In 1938, Sora was granted a scholarship in France. In World War Two, during the German occupation of France, Sora wrote a doctoral dissertation about the great French philosopher Blaise Pascal. It is World War Two that Mihai Sora’s communist deviation dates from. Sora enlisted as a member of the French Communist Party. His deeply anti-fascist feelings, shared by so many other intellectuals, were manipulated and hijacked, and steered towards taking sides with the other facet of the criminal totalitarian regime, communism. However, his biography would fortunately cure him of the communist illusion. In 1948, Sora returned to Romania to visit his parents, but the communist regime in Romania banned him from returning to France, where his wife and children were waiting for him. Sora was thus forced to stay in Romania and live here for the rest for his life.



    Mihai Șora used to be close to the Iasi Group, a group of intellectuals who were trying to oppose the communist regime in the 1970s, a group made of writers, essayists, philosophers, translators.



    Sorin Antohi was one of the members of the Iasi Group. He reminisced what Mihai Sora used to do for them, whenever needed.



    Tereza Culianu-Petrescu didn’t mince her words: Mihai Șora was our friend, the man who came to Iasi so many times. He used to spend so much time with us and we need to say the things that are less well-known. Yes, he carried documents that had to be taken out of the country, letters, magazine issues, so many other things that had to be taken out of the country. They had to be sent abroad in various ways, via various channels. And yes, Mihai Sora at least three times acted as the carrier for those documents that had to be sent abroad.



    After 1945, Romania had the full experience of the communist utopia. The intellectuals, together with society, had been experiencing the same material and spiritual frustrations. The daily absurd had gained its momentum.



    Sorin Antohi recalled how Mihai Sora, then cured of any political illusion, behaved in an episode where the reality and the ideological utopia were clearly delineated from one another.



    I should like to evoke Mihai Sora one last time, as follows: there is a heated discussion on the Internet and everywhere else about him, in every respect and in any direction. I shall soon publish a text bearing the title Mihai Sora’s Silences. People don’t know anything about it because they haven’t seen it, they didn’t witness anything, so they know nothing about his silences. And if meaningful silences ever existed, they were Mihai Sora’s silences. Let me give you just one example: during a conference on utopia I organized at the Iasi University in 1986, Mihai Sora, was, from my point of view, the special guest star. All of them were special guest stars, but he was the most special guest star. Mihai Sora stood up from his seat when I gave him the floor, he made for the pedestal he was supposed to speak from, he fixed the audience in the hall with a rather steady gaze, he looked to the left, he looked to the right, he walked back to the seat he stood up from and got himself seated quietly. Just as I also said then, I’m also saying the same right now: there are things about which silence is sometimes more eloquent. Instead of speaking about utopia in a dystopia, just as we were trying to do, in our own form of subversion and counterculture, Mihai Sora kept silent.



    After 1989, Mihai Șora had his own contribution to the rebirth of political life in Romania, being appointed Education Minister. He also took part in the consolidation of Romania’s civil society as a member of the Group for Social Dialogue and of the Civic Alliance. To the end of his life, Mihai Sora remained a distinct and active public voice. (EN)


  • Jurnal românesc – 09.09.2022

    Jurnal românesc – 09.09.2022

    Guvernul are ca
    prioritate şi îşi propune prin măsurile adoptate să faciliteze reîntoarcerea în
    ţară a cât mai multor români aflaţi la muncă în străinătate, a declarat
    prim-ministrul Nicolae Ciucă, la Gala RePatriot.     Este un obiectiv, este o
    acţiune pe care trebuie să o facem împreună (…) este datoria noastră şi
    menirea noastră să facem ceea ce trebuie aici pentru a-i convinge că România
    s-a schimbat, România s-a transformat şi România este locul unde s-au născut şi
    este locul unde trebuie să se întoarcă, unde trebuie să muncească, unde avem
    atât de mare nevoie de ei    , a afirmat premierul. El a arătat că Executivul
    de la Bucureşti a iniţiat deja programe pentru a da un semn, cât se poate de
    consistent, de sprijin în beneficiul celor care doresc să revină în ţară.
    (…) finanţăm inovaţia şi le oferim posibilitatea românilor din
    străinătate, minţilor luminate care au pasiune, să inventeze (…). Sunt bani
    de la bugetul de stat. Cred că această alternativă a proiectelor guvernamentale
    cu cele oferite de mediul de afaceri, de societatea civilă, pot într-adevăr să
    arate deschiderea şi să arate preocuparea întregii societăţi româneşti pentru
    a-i determina pe români să vină acasă,     a precizat Ciucă. Lansat de
    fundaţia Romanian Business Leaders, care reuneşte antreprenori şi lideri din
    mediul de afaceri românesc, proiectul RePatriot este adresat românilor din
    diaspora care doresc să se conecteze cu ţara şi le oferă acestora sprijin
    pentru a investi în România.




    Peste 2.600 de
    români afectaţi de suspendarea zborurilor companiei Blue Air au solicitat
    ajutorul misiunilor diplomatice şi oficiilor consulare ale României din
    străinătate, a anunţat Guvernul de la Bucureşti.     Ministerul de Externe a pus la
    dispoziţia cetăţenilor blocaţi în aeroporturi două numere de telefon la care
    aceştia îşi pot notifica situaţia, pentru a solicita sprijin în vederea
    repatrierii. Acestea sunt 021 431 18 69 şi 0751 08 45 37. De asemenea,
    conaţionalii au la dispoziţie şi adresa de email callcenter@mae.ro. MAE recomandă,
    în cazul grupurilor de turişti, ca o singură persoană să contacteze personalul
    consular, informaţiile obţinute de aceasta urmând a fi diseminate şi celorlalţi
    membri ai grupului. Operatorul aerian naţional TAROM a anunţat că a început
    operaţiunile de repatriere şi că acestea se derulează în măsura
    capacităţilor reale de care dispune. Ministrul Transporturilor, Sorin
    Grindeanu, a transmis că Blue Air este un operator privat şi va trebui să
    plătească atât despăgubiri către pasagerii pe care i-a abandonat, cât şi
    costurile curselor TAROM, care au adus deja în ţară sute de români. Blue Air
    Aviation a anunţat la, 6 septembrie, că suspendă toate cursele programate a
    pleca de pe aeroporturile din România până la 12 septembrie, din cauza blocării
    conturilor companiei de către Ministerul Mediului.




    Teatrul Naţional
    I. L. Caragiale din Bucureşti va participa la a 7-a ediţie a
    Reuniunii Teatrelor Naţionale Româneşti de la Chişinău, care va avea loc în
    perioada 15-28 septembrie.     În zilele de 23 şi 24 septembrie, teatrul
    bucureştean va prezenta trei producţii recente: D-ale carnavalului,
    Noaptea lui Helver şi Casa de la ţară. Alături de gazda
    evenimentului, Teatrul Naţional Mihai Eminescu din capitala
    moldoveană, la actuala ediţie a Reuniunii Teatrelor Naţionale Româneşti
    participă 17 teatre de pe ambele maluri ale Prutului. În semn de solidaritate
    cu cetăţenii Ucrainei şi de afirmare a unor idealuri comune, la manifestare a
    fost invitat şi Teatrul Naţional Dramatic Academic Ivan Franko din
    Kiev. Evenimentul, organizat sub genericul Artiştii pentru pace,
    libertate, speranţă, este organizat sub Înaltul Patronaj al preşedinţilor
    României şi Republicii Moldova, Klaus Iohannis şi respectiv Maia Sandu.




    Expoziția
    Thinking on Art, Nature, Society, a artistului vizual Marilena
    Preda Sânc, este inaugurată la 9 septembrie la sediul Institutului Român de
    Cultură și Cercetare Umanistică de la Veneția.     Manifestarea reuneşte lucrări de
    pictură, fotografie și artă video care prezintă convingerile sociale și
    politice ale autoarei. Marilena
    Preda Sânc este profesor la Universitatea Naţională de Arte din Bucureşti. Din
    1980, creaţiile sale au fost prezentate internaţional în muzee, la conferinţe,
    simpozioane, în galerii şi în media. Arta sa explorează problematicile feministe de gen, bătrâneţe şi femeia ca
    leader. Este autoarea unor scrieri de specialitate centrate pe Arta în Spaţiul
    Public, Feminism şi Noile Media. Expoziţia de la Veneţia va putea fi vizitată
    până la 17 septembrie.


  • How we talk to children about the war

    How we talk to children about the war

    The complicated situation in Ukraine has brought out an extremely sensitive issue. Maybe we can keep our children away from a dramatic situation in our family, but we certainly cannot cover their eyes when they see terrible images of war. How do we explain to children the drama of war? How do we prepare them to deal with complicated situations that may arise later in their own lives? Do we filter reality or not?



    Heres psychologist Cristina Năstase’s opinion: “In a crisis situation, a child first and foremost needs safety. Lies, omission of information and false assurances cannot create safety. On the contrary. They deepen the uncertainty, throwing the child into a situation of total confusion, given that children can no longer trust their parents words. If parents don’t talk to children, they can somatize their distress, refuse to leave the house, become apathetic or, on the contrary, become angrier. Talk to your children as much as necessary, give them information, but not in excess. Give them only basic information, in a progressive way. Children need time to process. If a child asks a question about a certain situation, specific only to a certain event, it is important to answer that question alone and avoid enlarging upon the issue, but, still, show availability, a sincere openness, so that whenever the child has questions, he or she should know that the parent will answer it. If children come up with questions and parents deny them, children will be confused, they will think that the adult is lying, and the parents lose the opportunity to assure them that they are safe. But parents are supposed to be the children’s safe haven. Parents, especially of children aged up to 11-12 years, can filter and translate the information to make it accessible to them. They can reassure them, encourage them to let out their emotions, and be there for them. Not talking to them means letting them fill the narrative gap, and the child will think like this: if they hide this from me, it must be something serious, which leads to increased anxiety. If they dont tell me, it means they dont trust me, which leads to lower self-esteem. So, be honest and direct, but without extreme details.”



    Next Cristina Năstase will tell us how we should approach the subject of death with children of different ages and will also talk about the role of the parent in this equation: “It is recommended to start from what children already know, then they should be encouraged to ask questions. They should also be helped to share their feelings of worry, fear, anger, sadness and compassion. What’s the role of parents? To explain, depending on age, what war is. There are history books for kids that parents can get inspiration from, to give explanations to their kids. You can read them stories about battles in which the good wins. Or you can watch animated films or movies with them, adapted from history books. It is very good to play with your children war games, if this game is initiated by the child. The game helps them release their fear and project in the game their war-related fantasies, a game in which you should let the children be in control. Most likely, this game will be initiated by younger children and children of up to 9-10 years. Maybe with the older kids you can use strategy games or video games. Humor is an important resource, because it releases pressure, puts things in perspective and produces joy, and laughter has the potential to wave off fear and anger. For some children it may be enough. Others would ask if people who are fighting a battle die. And you will have to tell them the truth, and answer other questions related to death, because the fear of war ultimately boils down to the fear of death. You can reassure them that they will not die, and neither will you, the parents, because the adults from all countries are working to solve the situation, you assure them that this is not their responsibility, that they do not need to feel guilty, that they can play with their friends, and they can continue do everything they enjoy. Parents can tell children that themselves, as adults, feel the same emotions, worries, sadness, anger, and that they are sure that the war will not extend, that our country will not be at war. They can say that it is important to focus on what we have to do every day, that we can help those from Ukraine, that they can also help if they want to, that it is important to be united, that together we can resist better. Children will feel safe as the grown-ups explain them what is happening. They won’t let themselves be overwhelmed, they dont cry, theyre not terrified.”



    Psychologist Cristina Năstase also teaches us how to talk to teenagers about war: “The big children, the teenagers have a representation of what war entails. What consequences derive from this? They know this from books, movies, friends, history classes, and from TV. Never before has the war been so close. With them, parents need to check the source of information. To bring clear, logical arguments to help them calm down. You need to validate their emotions, accept when they tell you that they are not afraid, although their behavior says something else, to help them become aware of the relationship between their thoughts and emotions, to work with thoughts, to make them think rationally. You can share, as parents, your own views about the war, you can encourage them to talk about theirs. You can talk to them about how we can help refugees. Pick a time in the day when to talk about what changes have occurred in the course of events, if they appear more anxious than the previous day. Be open to discussions, but dont prolong them excessively.”



    Do not try to cancel children’s emotions, talk together about their emotions. Thus, children will feel safe and will learn about themselves, says Cristina Nastase: “Although they are difficult for adults, these conversations should take place. Such a dialogue should be seen as an open door to other future discussions on complicated topics. Adults must accept childrens emotions, not repress them, and find, to the extent to which this is possible, appropriate answers to their questions, so that the image they will process should be as appropriate as possible for their understanding. Do not forget that children can experience strong emotions, but not for too long. The better you master them, the faster they pass. By talking about fear, you bring it out and help the child calm down. Parents don’t have to have perfect answers to all the problems and questions. Analyzing a topic with children is the way to teach children to navigate through ambiguous feelings, to think difficult, complicated things through, which will increase their psychological resistance to them. Parents shouldn’t be afraid to say ‘I dont know’ and ‘I cant’. Showing ones own vulnerability, in a calm and self-controlled manner, is useful, because it encourages the expression of feelings.” (LS)

  • Romanian support for the Ukrainian refugees

    Romanian support for the Ukrainian refugees

    Almost 400,000 Ukrainian citizens have taken refuge in Romania since the onset of Russias attacks on Ukraine. Refugees started to appear at several cross-border points along the common border spanning almost 650 kilometers on the very first day of the invasion, February 24, especially in the north, as they were trying to enter Romania through the Maramureș and Moldavia regions. Fewer refugees were reported at the eastern border, at the mouths of the Danube River. In these border areas, the refugees were immediately received by the locals who, mobilizing instantly and instinctively, hurried to help them and offer them food and shelter. Then, the civil society representatives came in, alongside the official institutions. They set up tents, collected first necessity items, and provided information and transport to those who only wanted to transit Romania.



    The Romanian National Council for Refugees has been there since February 24, to offer their expertise, says Ana Cojocaru, the representative of this organization: “My colleagues are currently on the ground, we are present at numerous cross-border points. We are an NGO specializing in legal expertise. Therefore, all we can do is provide information and counseling, and, if necessary, counseling on the asylum procedure in the case of those people who want the protection of the Romanian state. We also have two operational telephone lines on which we can be contacted at any time, during the day or at night. We receive tens or hundreds of calls per day on these lines. We are also present in all the refugee centers in the country that are subordinated to the Interior Ministry, more precisely to the General Inspectorate for Immigration.”



    Many of the questions regarding the stationing on and crossing of the Romanian territory were centralized, in several foreign languages, on the dopomoha.ro website, a project supported by public institutions in collaboration with non-governmental associations. In addition, due to the seriousness of the situation, many of the formalities for entering Romania have been simplified.



    But it wasnt like that from the beginning, Ana Cojocaru explains: “The questions we receive are mainly related to how to enter and transit Romania. Indeed, Romania has not had to deal with such large inflows of people in recent history. It was somehow natural to have to make little adjustments in the process, but I think we are now on the right track and there is more and more clarity and coordination between the state and civil society and between state institutions in general.”



    However, what was most impressive was the quick response and empathy of ordinary Romanians towards refugees. Ana Cojocaru from the Romanian National Council for Refugees has more: “No one could have anticipated this extraordinary response from the civil society, from individuals, in general, and from border communities. There are many initiatives of NGOs and the state that are meant to support people displaced from Ukraine. And the response capacity is extraordinary. Let me give you an example: on Saturday night at 11:30 p.m. I was looking for a solution for a group of 14 people, some of whom were children, and I found an accommodation solution for them in 10 minutes from another trustworthy person. Of course, we have encountered difficulties, especially at the beginning, because the number of people who wanted to help was so great that a little chaos was created at the main border-crossing points. Meanwhile, information started being gathered, at central level, on all these initiatives. Cells have been set up in those counties with cross-border points to Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova. And I think we are currently better adjusting the coordination process.”



    Ștefan Mandachi, a local entrepreneur from the Suceava area, is one of the Romanians who, since the first day of war, has helped the refugees. Impressed by the crowd of people who “out of all that they had gathered in a lifetime, grabbed hastily what they could in a bag and ran away with their children and pets, not knowing if they would ever return”, Ștefan Mandachi offered these people free accommodation and meals in his hotels and restaurants.



    Ștefan Mandachi does not know how many people he has helped so far: “I cant give you an exact number right now. I know there are over 200 people every day. For example, one day we had to open another dining room. I think there was a record number of people then, about 300 or so. Every day, more than 200 people come for accommodation. We have eventually set up a call center, we made a team and through this formula we have managed to identify what people need: apartments, transport, short-, medium- and long-term stays. At present, one of our priorities is to be able to take these people to their places of accommodation, or transport them to Europe, wherever they might want to go.”



    As expected, refugees are sad and desperate. Stefan Mandachi explains: ”I guess everyone realizes that people coming from Ukraine are in a very bad state. They get a better mood only when their children start playing. We tried to organize some games, to divert their attention from the war. When the parents, in fact the mothers, because the fathers remained in Ukraine, see their children smiling, they can loosen up a bit. But obviously, there is a lot of tension among the entire Ukrainian community and not only, because there are refugees of other nationalities, such as Nigerians, Indians and Moroccans who were studying in Kyiv.”



    Neither Ștefan Mandachi, nor the other NGOs would be able to cope without the contribution of volunteers, ordinary Romanians who have come to the rescue of the refugees as best as they could.



    Stefan Mandachi has details: “Weve put together a great team of volunteers. Many of them are Moldovan and Ukrainian students studying at a university in Suceava. They came in large numbers. They are doing their job very diligently and with great passion. They are very passionate, which is an inspiration for us too. I didnt know about 90% of them, I had never seen them before. They had come from nearby communes such as Salcia and Bihoreni. I didnt know them, but they were very happy and behaved as if we had known each other for a lifetime. They all came here to volunteer.”



    Unfortunately, as the war in Ukraine seems to continue, the number of refugees is going to increase, and the process of providing help should be more and more efficient. (LS)

  • Romanian society tends to look more and more like a dystopia

    Romanian society tends to look more and more like a dystopia

    The Romanian society tends to look more and more like
    the dystopia imagined by Huxley, who envisaged a world of stability and peace
    where completely despiritualized people used to live in false freedom and
    harmony. The restrictions imposed to limit the spread of the dreadful
    coronavirus are changing the human nature in a very subtle way, which was quite
    unpredictable in the early days of the pandemic. However, all these strange
    things like the lockdown, the limited freedom of movement, the closed theatres,
    cinemas and restaurants is the new normalcy. And so is the remote working. In
    the following minutes, sociologist Vladimir Ionas is going to tell us more on how
    the working conditions changed during the pandemic and how they are influencing
    the psychological exhaustion phenomenon.


    Vladimir Ionas: The pandemic has altered both the behaviour of
    the employee and the employer. The idea of people working from home at first
    raised a lot of questions related to productivity. However, productivity didn’t
    drop during the pandemic as expected, on the contrary. And employers started to
    like the idea of letting employees to work from home as much as they can.
    Besides a lot of advantages related to rented offices and other costs,
    employers realized that productivity is on the rise and that’s a good thing.


    No one would have believed at
    that time that one could raise productivity by working in pajamas and attending
    ZOOM sessions. However, there are side effects, like increased psychological
    and physical exhaustion adding to the burnout phenomenon, as working from home
    implies a larger amount of work. Here is
    again Vladimir Ionaș:


    Vladimir Ionas: Employees are motivated by the uncertainties
    related to keeping their jobs, and they want to prove that they can perform
    well from home too or even better. So they have doubled their efforts, trying
    to finish the work faster and they start being affected by the burnout effect,
    which has been reported in an increasingly higher number of categories not only
    in the medical personnel who have lately been subjected to an increased amount
    of stress. There were employees who worked without breaks in a bid to finish
    their work earlier and they even worked at night. There are also children who
    are at home now because schools have been closed down and they need attention
    too. So, there are many factors as you can see, which may lead to this burnout
    effect.


    Old vulnerabilities that we all feel at certain times
    in our careers, have deepened during the pandemic mainly as the job market
    doesn’t look very good nowadays. This has also exerted more pressure on
    employees. Here is Vladimir Ionaș with more on the issue.


    Vladimir Ionaș: The concern that we all feel these days about
    our jobs has triggered in those working from home the need to prove that can
    perform as good as if they were in the office. There were people even before
    the pandemic who said they can do their jobs from home, they don’t need an
    office, and the pandemic gave them the opportunity to prove they can be even
    better at their jobs by working from home. Unfortunately, this situation has
    prolonged and it proved that for some employees the amount of work they had to
    deal with proved to be higher than before the pandemic. Even now, there are big
    percentages, around 60-65 % of the active population, who prefer to do their
    work from home because besides all the shortcomings there are also positive
    aspects, like more time to spend with the family and the loved ones and that’s
    a good thing.


    School from home was also believed to be absurd until
    the pandemic but now it’s reality, significantly impacting the development of
    the young people’s social abilities. Let’s listen to Vladimir Ionaș again:


    Vladimir Ionaș: Young people are bearing the brunt of the new
    situation as they were at the beginning of a new life, a student life when one
    has to go from hostel to classes and meet with friends and colleagues. They can
    no longer enjoy the student life as we know it because most of the faculties
    and universities shifted to online courses. And I believe these young people need
    more attention from the psychological point of view. The fact that 65% of the
    employees have voted in favour of home working even after the pandemic proves
    they are pleased with how things are going on right now.


    A question remains though: are we already seeing the
    dawns of the society depicted in Huxley’s book or is this just an impression?

    (bill)

  • Generational differences and modernisation in the 19th Century

    Generational differences and modernisation in the 19th Century

    The concept of modernisation emerged in a rather vague form in the Romanian society after the 1770s, in requests addressed by the local nobility to Russia and Austria, followed by a first implementation in 1822. That year, in the wake of the revolution led by Tudor Vladimirescu, the Ottoman Empire replaced the Greek rulers of the Romanian provinces with leaders from among the locals. It was a first victory, and others were soon to follow.



    In the first half of the 19th Century, up until 1859 when Moldavia and Wallachia united to form Romania, two generations of Romanians strived to modernise the country. It was the 1820s generation, which opened the door to reforms, and the 1840 generation, which initiated the 1848 Revolution.



    The 1820 generation was one formed in the spirit of Oriental culture, with Ottoman culture as the prevailing model. They learned of the reforming ideas circulating in the West via various travellers. The 1840s generation was made up of the children of local nobility, who studied in France, Germany and Italy and had direct, unmediated contact with Western modernity. Once back home, these young men designed a radical transformation programme for the Romanian Principalities.



    Experts in the Romanian 19th Century have read the profound changes occurring in that period as a reflection of the differences between the two generations. They went even further to notice rifts between the young and the elderly. Historian Alin Ciupală with the Bucharest University is one of the experts who embrace this viewpoint. Ciupală believes that after Tudor Vladimirescus 1821 riots and the removal of the Greek rulers of the Romanian Principalities, we can speak about the dawn of a political class in the Romanian territories.



    Alin Ciupală: “After reverting to local rulers in 1822, the greater Romanian nobility is actually divided into several factions. We have a group of boyars loyal to Russia and its policy in the Romanian principalities and the Balkan region. Then we have a group loyal to the Ottoman Empire and its interests in the same region. And, particularly after 1840, a new generation emerged, made up of higher or lower-rank noblemen, generally young people having studied in the West, who came up with a new idea, a new political project tied to the 1848 Revolution, to the union of the principalities, to the modernisation of the Romanian society.



    The emergence of the Romanian political class was the outcome of the fight of both generations for freedom of expression and the abolition of censorship. But it also came with a separation among those who were engaged in politics, and more often than not this differentiation was operated along the lines of membership to a particular generation. Equally important, there was a delineation by sex, with women being a lot more open to change than men.



    Alin Ciupală: “During this mid-19th Century period we can basically talk about two divisions, two rifts. On the one hand, there is a division between spouses, at couple level, between men and women. Most of the times, men were still attached to an Eastern-style cultural model, whereas women were more courageous and they took the step towards modernity sooner and more resolutely. They leaned towards the Western cultural model. And a second rift, which is very clear with the emergence of the 1848 generation, is that between children and parents. The youth, the new generation, who went to university in France and Germany, came back home with new ideas, with the desire to change things.



    An apparently minor element that played a great role in the separation between the values embraced by the youth and those fostered by the elderly, was fashion, something that many view as trivial. The clothing, footwear, jewels, adding to the taste in music, literature and socialising, have had an essential contribution to changing the Romanians mind-set. Visual sources clearly indicate this strong generational difference. The paintings dating back to that age that feature boyars and their wives depict almost opposite worlds. The husbands are dressed in Oriental outfits, in stark contrast with the wives, who are wearing clothes tailored in keeping with the latest trends in Paris. Alin Ciupală gave us the example of a public monument in Bucharest to substantiate this claim:



    Alin Ciupală: “There is a very beautiful monument in Bucharest, unfortunately we no longer pay any attention to it: a statue group featuring the Golescu family, near the North Train Station. We have the father, Dinicu Golescu, wearing an Oriental outfit, the kind the Greek rulers introduced in the Principalities in the early 18th Century. Dinicu Golescu is accompanied by his 4 sons, future 1848 revolutionaries, all of them dressed in keeping with the Western fashion, the “German style as it was called at the time. This monument is an illustration of the division I was talking about, and ultimately of the transformation undergone by the Moldavian and Wallachian society in the first half of the 19th Century.



    More than 160 years ago, modern Romania was being created. Toiling for this goal were two generations of Romanians, which, although very different in many respects, pursued the same goal: modernisation. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

  • What parents think about online education

    What parents think about online education

    The general crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic has changed education practices. Since classes have been suspended, students and teachers have had to adapt to the new situation, so their personal computers, tablets or mobile phones replaced the classroom, become a teaching space. Pupils and students and equally their parents had to adapt to the new context, the school curriculum and the inherent teaching methods. Interaction with classmates and teachers by means of a screen has practically brought school at home. Nevertheless, all this time, many parents have felt highly pressured.



    An online press conference organized as part of the SuperTeach project presented the results of the latest survey conducted in Romania in relation to parents perception of online teaching as well as to the challenges posed by the state of emergency.



    Felix Tătaru, a co-founder of SuperTeach, has more: “Based on information from teachers, we started organizing webinars and conferences, with themes and guests adapted to their needs. But any action, especially in the education domain, needs feedback. Teachers need feedback from parents, pupils or students, therefore, we have conducted a second survey together with Open-l Research, with Adina Nica. Parents answered several questions and we invited 2 experts who spoke from different perspectives: the educational management perspective and that of the parents association, about issues brought about by parents.



    Through this survey, Adina Nica, a consultant and researcher with Open-I Research, analyzed the psychological impact of online education and what it meant from the point of view of social interaction: “I would first mention the parents positive attitude towards online education. Pressure on parents was high during this period, and we expect pressure to be equally high when their children return to school. Parents were quite worried about the suspension of classes, given that communication with the teachers was much delayed at the beginning of the state of emergency. From the childrens standpoint, the suspension of classes meant deprivation of social life.



    During the home isolation period, Romanian parents had to adapt to a new daily lifestyle, while trying to cope with the new challenges at their work place and to support their children during the online teaching process. Oftentimes, the parents work from home overlapped their childrens online classes on audio-video web platforms.



    Adina Nica has more: “Parents were very much affected by these changes, because, besides changing their way of working from home or even losing their jobs, they found themselves in a new situation, with their kids at home and with lots of activities to fulfill such as cooking, spending time with their children, helping them with the homework and with how to deal with the new online platforms. It was a major change for parents, with a lot of pressure for them.



    The SuperTeach survey also analyzed the emergency situations psychological impact on parents, their fears being often related to a feeling of social uncertainty. Adina Nica: “Parents have had many fears, their major fear being related to their kids and their own health or to their parents health. They also had fears regarding the education system. Parents were not sure that their kids could make up for the lost classes, especially the 8th and 12th graders. And all these fears added to financial insecurity.



    Another thing that has worried parents during the state of emergency period was whether they had a correct attitude towards their own children. They wondered if they were too lenient or too strict with their children.



    Here is Adina Nica back at the microphone: “When asked about major difficulties in this period, they first mentioned the balance between authority and flexibility. The teachers had vanished into thin air, they did not know how to react, so their first reaction was to disappear for a while. Parents were left with their kids at home and didnt know what to do in the first place. They did not know whether to leave their kids enjoy the mini holiday, or to be strict and make them study.



    Despite difficulties, many parents have chosen to look at the bright side of things and considered that the many challenges they were faced with helped them exercise their ability to adapt to change. Adina Nica has more: Asked to mention the positive aspects of this period, parents first said that home isolation was an opportunity for their kids to adapt to change. They also mentioned the opportunity to spend more time with their family and do more things together and thirdly the opportunity to experiment with digital platforms.



    Initiated by the “Romanian Business Leaders Foundation, the EDUCATIVA Group and the Institute for Personal Development, the SuperTeach project promotes the idea of focusing on students needs and on training teachers according to the principles of open-mindedness. (translation by Lacramioara Simion)

  • Mentorship for disadvantaged and gifted children

    Mentorship for disadvantaged and gifted children

    In Romania, the number of institutionalized children within the social protection system stands at around 60 thousand. These kids, who were abandoned either at birth or in their early childhood are in foster care placement centers (former orphanages), where, by the age of 18, they live without the love and affection of a family, without proper education and without someone stimulating their creative and intellectual potential. Therefore, it is no wonder that only 0.1% of the orphans manage to graduate from a faculty.



    One of these person is Lajos Kristoff, a graduate of the Faculty of International Relations and European Studies and holder of an MA degree in Clinical Psychology. Lajos Kristoff has been in foster care placement in Mures county (central Romania) since the age of 3, and he has managed to overcome the system’s obstacles and not waste his potential. Let’s listen to him:



    Lajos Kristoff: “I believe I was a vey dreamy person and mature enough for my age. I was bold enough to fight for my dreams and for what I wanted to become. There were some people in my life who opened new horizons for me and who encouraged me by saying that if I wanted to be something, I could do that, I had to choose my own way in life. As a child, I wanted to study medicine and specialize in pediatric neurosurgery, but that did not happen. But I told myself that if I did not manage to achieve what I first wanted, I could instead opt for something related to children education. So I decided that I should be a doctor of souls.”



    ‘Doctor of souls’ or ‘trainer of geniuses’, this is how Lajos Kristoff has come to be known in the community. After a period of work within the association for gifted children, the Gifted Education Center, he set up a school of excellence devoted to discovering and developing the talent of each child either institutionalized or coming from a family. That is why his school of excellence cooperates with placement centers as well as with regular schools.



    For the children in the protection system, this mentorship is almost always vital, says Lajos Kristoff: “Most institutionalized kids and young people grow with this fear of the future. That is why they do not succeed in reaching their goals and all their dreams stumble at the foster home’s door. Being deprived of parents, of love and affection, of everything that means empathetic human interaction, it’s but natural for them to not be able to look to the future, to reach their goals in life, to see their mission.”



    In 2017, Lajos Kristoff started another project, similar to the school of excellence, but with a more intensive and ambitious program meant to discover the latent potential in children, called ‘Mentor in Romania’: “The program is actually a national network of mentors and children part of which the kids are mentored one to one or in groups, and the program has been functional since 2017. We get in touch with these children by means of the social assistance directorates, the city halls, and the education ministry. They help us have access in schools and inform the teachers about our activities. Mentorship means 16 hours per month of formal and informal meetings. Formal meetings take place within the institution, more precisely in schools, the informal meetings take place within the kids’ families. I provide mentorship to several kids with an intelligence quotient above average. One of them is from Onesti, in the east of the country. The others belong to a theater troupe, as they all have artistic skills and also scientific and mathematical skills.”



    Targeting all kids up to the age of 12 from foster care placement centers as well as from families, ‘Mentor in Romania’ does not lose sight, though, of the fact that the institutionalized, disadvantaged children need to be granted additional help.



    Here is Lajos Kristoff back at the microphone: “For 12 years now I have been organizing educational camps in the mountain resorts. It is a not-for-profit camp. One day I gathered my team and I suggested we should set up a mentorship school: a school of little mentors devoted mainly to kids from the child protection system. The first edition of the summer mentorship school lasted one month and we worked with 20 institutionalized kids from day centers from Bucharest’s sectors 3 and 4. Our one-to-one mentorship system as well as the group mentorship has been implemented and it has yielded exceptional results. We have worked in a team, and, in three weeks, we managed to transform several kids who could not allow themselves to dream and who had self-confidence issues and to help them to discover their true selves through talks, theater courses and other innovative methods. The kids chose their mentors on their own.”



    Theater is an adequate means to help children express themselves and to provide them with financial aid. That is why, as part of his projects, Lajos Kristoff also organizes courses in theater for kids. One of the achievements of these courses was the show Alice in Christmas Land, an adaptation of the classical story by Lewis Caroll played by kids for kids. The money obtained from ticket sales will be donated to help equip kindergartens located in disadvantaged areas.



    The show, made with the support of the State Jewish Theater and the SARIDA Association was directed by Ioan Păduraru who, himself a volunteer within the camps of excellence organized by Lajos Kristoff, became aware of the benefits of making institutionalized kids get in contact with kids with families.



    The program ‘Mentor in Romania’ continues in 2020 and this year Lajos Kristoff and his team intend to support more than 250 kids discover their potential. (translation by L. Simion)

  • 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.

  • Emigrants from and immigrants to Romania

    Emigrants from and immigrants to Romania


    According to official statistics carried by the press recently, from 2007 to 2017, 3.4 million Romanians left this country, accounting for about 17% of the population. Most of them have left for more than one year in countries which they deem more attractive from an economic point of view. According to Social Monitor, a sociological project of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Romania, in 2017 almost 2.5 million Romanians were living abroad.



    Victoria Stoiciu, programme manager at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, has more details: ”The statistics refer to the 2003-2017 period. On the one hand, the document points to the number of Romanians who went abroad for more than one year and on the other, to the upward trend of emigration. The figures do not cover seasonal workers, those Romanians working abroad for three, six or eight months a year. They go abroad either to pick strawberries or to work in constructions. If we take them into consideration too, the number of Romanians leaving the country is much higher, standing at over 3 million.”



    This situation makes Romania comparable to one of the countries confronted with a tough and long civil war, namely Syria. Victoria Stoiciu explains: “Romania ranks second in the world after Syria, in terms of the Diaspora growth rate, not as regards the number of migrants or the percentage of the population they represent. The rate at which Romanians left the country ranks us second after Syria. That is disquieting because since 2000, Romania has reported economic growth, though. So, we must analyze the growth model. How is economic growth felt and distributed among the population given that the rate at which Romanians left the country places it second after Syria, a country devastated by civil war?”



    Those who leave the country are mostly people aged between 25 and 38, a category that is very important to Romania’s economy. They account for around 20% of the Romanian migrants. A lot of skilled workers from such areas as constructions or people with high qualification such as physicians or IT experts also leave Romania. Under the circumstances, they leave a void on the labor market, which for the time being, has not been covered yet.



    What about the migrants coming to Romania? According to the General Inspectorate for Immigration, in late 2017, there were around 67,000 foreigners from third countries, including people with international protection, that is refugees. The latter included over 800 people who came to Romania through the EU Refugee Relocation Mechanism. Also last year, there were 4,820 asylum seeking applications, a larger number than the average 1,500 applications in previous years. Who are the people from third countries who settled in Romania or sought asylum and why did they choose Romania? Generally, they are men who once they got the refugee status or international protection in Romania can bring their family over. Moreover, family reunification or reunification with a family member who has already settled here is the reason why many people come from third countries to Romania. However, there is another reason too which such people have invoked of late: the fear of persecution or generalized violence in their native countries.



    Foreigners have also come to Romania to get a job. Luciana Lazarescu, an expert in migration, explains: “There are 5,900 people with a work permit in Romania at present. They are nationals from third countries. In 2017, most of the work permits were given to nationals from Vietnam to work in the naval industry, as well as to nationals from Turkey, China and Serbia. The jobs in greatest demand for which work permits were given are those of welder, locksmith in metallic and naval constructions, restoration carpenter, mainly qualified jobs in the naval industry.”



    Admitting that for many refugees, Romania is not a destination country, an attractive country like West European countries, Luciana Lazarescu refers to a government programme for the insertion of people who have the right to reside in Romania: “There is a government programme for the integration of people with international protection; it includes a package of measures facilitating the foreigners’ integration into society, in the labor market and their adaptation to customs and the institutional system in Romania. The programme includes a Romanian language course and cultural orientation; various NGOs also offer other services targeting those categories of foreigners. A delicate question is the way in which the institutions involved in that programme collaborate and assume that task.”



    Given the small number of foreigners who have the right to settle in Romania and the lack of policies aiming to bring Romanians back home, what can be done to do away with the shortage of labor force?



    Victoria Stoiciu is back at the microphone: “Attracting immigrants is easy to say but hard to do, because Romania is not attractive for them. Since a migrant or refugee gets a EU visa, why should he or she settle in Romania instead of going to work in Germany, France of Belgium where wages are much higher? At the same time, it isn’t easy to make Romanians come back home. Ultimately, it’s all about wages. The state has the minimum wage as an instrument, which is now 2.5 times higher than in 2011, but the private sector should also adapt and increase wages. Sometimes, to do that, companies should reduce their profit and even be wound up. So, the solution isn’t simple at all.”

  • Unconventional music education methods

    Unconventional music education methods

    Unconventional education methods for both children and adults often involve music and movement and are used for passing on knowledge, to foster individual creativity and even in therapy, in some cases. Such methods started gaining popularity in Romania after 1990. At the time, German musician Hannes Heyne introduced his own teaching method in Romania. It was grounded on a basic principle: music is as important as language, since it is an ancient means of communication. Moreover, the way music was taught in the past can today serve as a model to familiarize children with music and sometimes to make adults understand each other, Hannes Heyne believed.



    Hannes Heyne: “The old tribes, they started with sounds, making and finding instruments in nature. So they didn’t make instruments, so they find stones, shells, wood sticks, and tried to communicate with them. And in my experience this possibility that we have as humans is available also now. We don’t have to be busy only with electronic tools. We can also go to nature and make instruments, simple instruments, wood sticks, but also from shells. Everybody has the possibility to make music without skills”.



    This method helps develop communication skills and emotional intelligence, in both children and adults. The latter can thus vent away their frustrations and stress, and sometimes learn how to better communicate with their peers.



    Hannes Heyne: “To listen to each other is very important. So when I can listen to others when they speak, I give value to the other. And this we can learn by music-making as well. So we can listen to how someone is playing but we can also answer something. This is communication basic”.



    Hannes Heyne traveled the world over applying his music education method in many places in Europe, the US, Mexico and Japan. He comes to Romania quite frequently, to organize workshops for children as well as music therapy courses.



    Hannes Heyne: “I was invited by schools, I was invited by institutions. For me, children is not difficult work. And we start with, when children are small, with a story, a fairytale, musical fairytale. Small kids, they want fairytales, and every instrument is personage. When they are bigger they are more asking how it’s made, who made it, what is this, how it’s functioning. The adults, they want to know how I can educate others, what this is making to my health, which affects us doing this. It’s kind of music therapy or not. In Romania, I’m open for co-work, so I was here doing workshops in the Ateliere de Creativitate in the Romanian Peasant Museum and in other cities also. I was in Arad, working in Brasov, working in nearly all Romania.”



    The method used by Hannes Heyne is similar to the so-called active methods for initiating kids into music that were conceived of at the start of the 20th century by composers Émile Jaques-Dalcroze and Carl Orff. In Romania this type of music education also started being used in public schools after it was initially used during courses held by NGOs.



    One of them is MiMaMuzica and the active method they adopted will be next explained by Lucian Nicolae: “Before learning the letters of the alphabet, before learning how to use them in words and then write them, children first need to speak a certain language, to understand a certain language. Children learn to speak their mother tongue before learning to write and read. In music the same principle is valid. First we learn to ‘speak’ the music, that is to practice or to make it, then we decode it and learn what it is at cognitive level, how we read and write a score. I personally feel closer to Carl Orff because his method combines vocal recitation, language, movement, dance, vocal and body expression, namely drama, as well as singing and playing instruments.”



    This active method lies at the core of the courses offered by MiMaMuzica and taught by Lucian Nicolae among others: “The workshops run by MiMaMuzica target children aged between zero and eight years. The teaching staff at MiMaMuzica also worked jointly with primary and secondary schools in Bucharest, as well as with a couple of nursery schools. Yet our collaboration with the schools entails our traveling with all our instruments to those schools. That is why it is more practical to invite the schools over to our premises.”



    Accordingly, that special kind of teaching can be integrated in the public education system, provided certain requirements are met. Lucian Nicolae is back at the microphone: ”I am positive that it can be integrated in the official system. For instance, in France there are movement ability halls that host music and dance classes, motion and even gymnastics classes. In Romania, the school curriculum has been adapted, theoretically, to cater for such needs. Therefore, from the zero to the 4th grade the curriculum includes music and movement classes. Based on an example from France, where many schools have a minimum number of instruments and halls for movement classes, I wholeheartedly recommend this kind of education. The school curriculum is extremely generous and thus provides openness, it has been elaborated by people who are familiar with the active methods. But it takes time to put theory into practice and that depends a lot on the musical experience of the teacher.”

  • Online sexual harassment of women

    Online sexual harassment of women

    With an increasingly easier access to the Internet, to online social networks and state-of-the-art digital equipment, online violence and harassment methods have also developed and diversified. Hence the concept of cyber bullying, a form of online aggression or harassment using electronic means. The Internet’s propagation speed and the possibility to send instant messages to people far away have only increased virtual violence, which is by no means less harmful than the real one, says Jurgita Peciuriene, an expert with the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE).




    Jurgita Peciuriene: ”There are many, many more different types of cyber-violence: cyber-stalking, cyber-harassment, non-consensual pornography, and luring young girls for purposes of trafficking or grooming younger girls. Non-consensual pornography is also known as revenge porn, and is spreading in huge proportions, and the perpetrators are often ex-partners who aim to publicly shame or humiliate. Women and men experience different types of harm. Men are more affected by cyber-insults, embarrassment and online harassment, while women are more exposed to cyber-stalking, online sexual harassment, and revenge porn.”



    According to EIGE, nowadays, the Internet allows for new forms of psychological violence against women: cyber-stalking and cyber harassment. Cyber-stalking is sending emails, text or video messages that are offensive or threatening, posting offensive comments about the respective person on the Internet and sharing intimate photos or videos of that person on the Internet. Cyber-harassment can be defined as receiving unwanted, offensive, sexually explicit emails, text messages and inappropriate offensive advances on social media and in chat rooms.



    Young women are particularly vulnerable to these forms of online psychological abuse, since they make more use of the Internet and social media than older women. According to 2014 data provided by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 20% of all 18 to 29 year-old women have experienced various ways of cyber-stalking starting at the age of 15. Moreover, in the case of women, violence in the virtual world is a continuation of violence or harassment experienced in the real world, EIGE experts say.



    In spite of being a very serious problem, at present there is no European legal framework that should incriminate and define cyber bullying, so it is up to the member states to take measures against this plague. In Romania for instance, there are neither statistical data to show the extent of the phenomenon, nor proper legislation on this particular offence, says Andreea Bragă, executive director of the feminist organization Filia Center:



    Andreea Bragă: “Unfortunately, there is no specific legislation meant to define cyber bullying. However, it could be included in certain law articles. In the new criminal code, article 208 defines harassment, saying that harassment represents, among other things, any repeated acts that may cause or are targeted at intimidating someone, including through online communication. Cyber bullying could thus be included under this law article, but it is not defined strictly as violence against women. There is legislation regarding cyber crime, but it does not make special reference to harassment. It only refers to pornography and personal data theft that may arise between former partners and can represent means of blackmailing a person to stay in a relationship.”



    Like other types of violence or harassment, cyber bullying stems from the power relationship established between victim and aggressor, says Andreea Bragă: “If you are part of a minority, be it ethnic, religious or sexual, and also if you are a woman – although women are not a minority, but more often than not they are placed in a inferior position as compared to men – you are exposed to cyber bullying to a larger extent. It is usually initiated by someone who has at least a symbolical capital of power, such as the most popular or coolest child in a group. That is why, the others, who happen to witness such an incident, more often than not side with the aggressor. In the case of teenagers, bullying becomes possible also due to the fact that witnesses, out of fear or of the need to copy or to imitate the aggressor, side with the aggressor. In the case of adults, we see tactics of intimidation, of injuring or criticizing people, by sending text messages, e-mails or even by creating defamatory web sites against some people. All these are made to denigrate or humiliate someone.”



    Clearly defining cyber bullying at legislative level would be needed not only to punish the perpetrators, but also to help victims better understand what is happening to them: namely that the manner in which they are aggressed or humiliated does not reflect their personal value but it is illustrative of how harmful their aggressors can be. Thus, the number of dramatic cases when people lose self-esteem can be reduced. And there is more to it.



    Here is Andreea Bragă again: “Cyber bullying is also closely linked to suicide. If a person has been subjected to a form of harassment for a long time, that person will come to be afraid, will get depressed and finally lose self-esteem. There have been cases of teenagers, both girls and boys, who committed suicide. Leaving aside the legislation in the field and the fact that there is no framework to punish such deeds, awareness raising campaigns are needed for people to understand what they are experiencing.”



    Not only the victims, but also the public at large browsing the Internet should be educated, so as to be able to react and put an end to an aggression whenever they become aware of instances of cyber bullying.

  • New trends: Organic and healthful

    New trends: Organic and healthful

    The ancient Latin proverb “Mens sana in corpore sano that is, a healthy mind in a healthy body, is nowadays gaining new meanings around the world, and Romania is no exception. From unprocessed foods, cooked at home and eaten slowly, to plant-based cosmetics, and from promoting open-air exercise to hand-made clothes and jewellery, there are many forms of a lifestyle as close to nature as possible. They are all part of a trend militating for a return to nature and for simplicity in all its forms.



    Time will tell whether this is only a short-lived craze or a long-term, science-based approach to life. The fact is that a growing number of Romanians embrace this “organic fashion, and a proof in this respect is the large number of fairs with this topic, organised frequently in Bucharest and many other Romanian cities. Andreea Stroe, the organiser of one such fair, says this trend is also a form of return to oneself, to strictly individual joys that the people of todays world, constrained by various obligations, can no longer experience.



    Here is Andreea Stroe, organiser of the “Agenda BIO fair: “This fair is our contribution to the proper development of society, and our way of encouraging a healthier lifestyle and healthier eating habits. We live at a time when people focus too much on work and other obligations, and lose touch with themselves. So, we wanted to bring them closer to products and to information regarding a different lifestyle. All these are intended to create a general sense of wellbeing.



    What types of products are generally to be found at these so-called organic or bio fairs? Andreea Stroe tell us more: “Its not just foodstuffs, there is a variety of products. But as far as food goes, generally there are vegan products. Clothing items are made of natural fibres. Jewels are made of semi-precious stones because they are regarded as having therapeutic properties, and there are designers who make only silver and semi-precious gem jewels, because they want their jewels to be more than just an ornament. Other participants in the fair sell dishes made of special materials, which do not alter the food and damage the health of those who eat them. The personal development part is represented by books for kids and adults. We believe education is just as important as the physical part.



    All these go hand in hand with a new type of individualism that Romanians have discovered since the fall of communism and their reconnection with the Western lifestyle.



    This form of individualism focuses on self-determination, according to the psychologist Daniel David, pro-rector of Babes-Bolyai University: “The point is for this autonomous individual to be as healthy as possible and live as long as possible. So, all these concerns have appeared. One of them is this so-called cult of our bodies, which is not necessarily a bad thing, because, from a sociological perspective, in order to have strong communities you need to have strong individuals. So, people have begun to pay more attention to what they eat and how they live. This is how this organic-focused trend has emerged, which, truly enough, is not yet supported by firm scientific evidence that the foodstuffs we buy from stores, for instance, are not good for our health or that the organic products really help prolong our lives or cure any health problems.



    Although this trend is not yet embraced by a majority of the population, the number of its supporters has increased over the years. And organic products are increasingly accessible, as Andreea Stroe notes: “A few years ago, when they heard about organic products, people used to say that they were very expensive and would not even look for them in stores. But they have recently noticed that organic products are not necessarily expensive. There are more and more producers who channel their resources so as to make their products as accessible as possible. Often, those who come to these theme fairs find that they spend the same amounts but are able to buy healthier products than those from classical stores, perhaps in somewhat smaller quantities.



    Although the organic fashion comes hand in hand with this newfound individualism in the Romanian society, paradoxically it overlaps the old agricultural practices in rural communities, psychologist Daniel David says: “This pattern is evident only among the young and middle-aged generations. The older generations know that this lifestyle somehow matches the traditional, peasant way of living. So this fashion, overlapping a potential that exists in Romania and that can be brought back to the forefront, has led to a phenomenon which is visible in Romania and is set to become even more visible.



    Today, the Western pattern of natural living, fuelled by individualism and by the traditional, environment-friendly agriculture, might eventually turn this trend from Cinderella into the prom queen.

  • Romanians’ Cultural Preferences

    Romanians’ Cultural Preferences

    According to popular perception, the most widespread cultural infrastructure elements in Romania are churches (99%), cultural centers (76%), local festivals (76%), parks (75%), culture houses (72%), and libraries (71%). This is the conclusion of the 2016 Cultural Consumption Barometer, a sociology study that gauges Romanian cultural preferences, a study run by the National Cultural Research and Training Institute. According to the same study, 60% of respondents believe there should be more press distribution kiosks, 68% want more libraries, 62% more bookstores, and 59% more parks.



    Anda Becuţ talked to us on behalf of the research department of the National Cultural Research and Training Institute: “Nationally, as you can see, the top places are held by cultural centers, festivals, holidays and parks, but with regional differences. The highest percentage of culture consumers are in Bucharest and Ilfov County, because the capital has a clearly richer culture infrastructure. There are differences between the rural and the urban areas. In the rural space, people are not used to a certain type of cultural offer, and in this case the degree of awareness is lower. I would like to mention that it is for the first time that we run this poll of cultural participation, we have used the Eurostat method, and we have brought together all activities and the degree of participation in the public sphere. I would also like to point out the very high percentages of awareness of the impact of culture on social cohesion, but also on the economic development of a community.”



    The study indicates that 32% of Romanians have not purchased a book in the last 12 months, and that 29% have not read a book during this period. In terms of music, traditional and ethno music are first on the list of preferences, with 53%, followed by domestic pop music with 30%, foreign pop music with 20%, manele 15%, blues 11%, hip-hop and symphonic 9%, rock 7%, opera, jazz and electronic music with 6%, and experimental 3%.



    Here is Dan Jurcan, a sociologist: “70% of Romanians dont go to the theater, or even to the movies. The difference with Europe may be explained by piracy, as indicated by data in previous years. A huge difference persists between the urban and the rural environments. Generally, the consumer of culture has a certain profile: higher education urban dweller. In 70% of rural localities we have houses of culture, but it is questionable what role they play. Most of the activities there consist of rituals, weddings, funerals, or election activities. Another figure that drew our attention was that on the relationship between social success and reading. 77% of the respondents said that they prefer work to reading, while 55% believe that you dont need reading to succeed in life. This proves that promotion, especially through the media, of models of easy success, football team owners or business people, is detrimental, and people like them have become role models for many young people. Another figure that drew my attention: over 78% of households have cable access, which means that they have Internet access. And only 12% of respondents told us that they have never used Facebook. This proves that social networks have deep penetration among seniors, if we were to look at age groups. Obviously, access to information has been on the rise, but the question that begs asking is related to how much cultural content we consume when we use the Internet.”



    This sociology study reveals that 77% of respondents have a low level of cultural involvement, 19% have an average level, 3% have a high level, and 1% are very involved culturally. Here is Carmen Croitoru, general manager of the National Cultural Research and Training Institute: “Another very important analysis is the one on the general distribution regarding the opinion of respondents on the social impact that culture has. This is the first time we apply this measurement, and it was a pleasant surprise, we reached the conclusion that people find culture important. Based on our observations, much of what we can call cultural consumption takes place on the Internet, people access cultural content as well, if they go on the Internet. In Romania, as opposed to the other European states, more people go on-line.”



    The most popular forms of cultural consumption in the public sphere (at least once a year) were: going to museums and exhibitions (20%), participating in theater shows (13%), cinema (9%), opera and operetta shows (7%), philharmonic (6%), entertainment and music (17%), and reading in public libraries (6%). According to the barometer, the main impediment that older people invoke for not taking part in cultural events is the lack of money (42%), state of health/ illness (21%), age (12%), or not enough time (7%).

  • Assessing the education system in Romania

    Assessing the education system in Romania

    Undergoing a long series of changes over the past 20 years, the latest one being operated at the level of school curricula, the Romanian education system has made impressive strides to meet the challenges of the 21st century. One such challenge is the system’s self-assessment mechanism, which actually means the assessment of the teaching staff’s activity and of the results obtained by pupils and students.



    A recent survey conducted by the relevant Romanian authorities, jointly with UNICEF and the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) is actually analysing the process of assessment and evaluation in the field of education. Under the current education law, pupils in the pre-tertiary education system have to be assessed several times starting from the second grade, and continuing in the fourth grade, then in the sixth grade to end with the National Evaluation in the eighth grade. The marks obtained at the national evaluation count for high school admission. Considered the most important test taken by pupils of up to 14-15 years of age, the National Evaluation has sparked controversy.



    Ioana Băltăreţu, a member of the National Pupils’ Council will try to describe some of these controversies: “Relative to our assessment, the National Pupils’ Council has noticed that much too often the focus was on subject matters included in the national exams. In their current form, these exams encourage pupils’ memorisation abilities to the detriment of their reasoning abilities. Some 40% of 15-year-old pupils in Romania are functional illiterates, as shown by the results recently made public by PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment. Although they are able to read, pupils do not understand much of what they read because of improper teaching and learning methods, which focus too much on memorisation.”



    If along the school years, children and adolescents go through various assessment stages, they would like, in their turn, to assess the way in which they are being educated and treated in school.



    Ioana Băltăreţu: “We consider that pupils are not involved enough in the internal assessment process. If we look at the activity of the pupils’ representative in the School Council, in various school assessment and quality monitoring commissions, or in the anti-violence committees, we can say that in some 97.5% of the cases pupils cannot express their opinion on a series of issues, not to mention that they are not even invited to attend discussions. The legislation in force and the rights of the pupils’ representatives should be observed. We consider that it is absolutely necessary for these evaluations and assessments to be more than a formality. They should start being regarded as a mechanism which can consolidate a good quality educational system, to the benefit of all.”



    The way in which tests can prove their efficiency has made the object of the aforementioned survey “Evaluation and assessment in the Romanian education system”, conducted by UNICEF, jointly with the OECD. The starting point for this survey is a not-very-satisfactory reality. In 2015, as compared to 2012, Romanian pupils reported progress in the PISA tests, but the situation is different with the “Sciences” chapter. For instance, 38.6% of the 15-year-old pupils did not perform well, getting results below level 2, that is below the basic level of knowledge allowing them to function efficiently in society.



    Starting from this situation, the questions are: how can we assess, through exams and tests, the real value of pupils and what can we do to help them improve their results? According to the authors of the survey, the answer is to make the education system more flexible. School should become not only the place where high performance is reached, a fact that Romania has proved it is capable of, but also a place of inclusion, where all pupils acquire the skills and knowledge required on the labour market. According to Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills there is, still, room for improvement.



    To the Romanian authorities, the most important aspect of the UNICEF-OECD survey is the recommendation that these assessments in the pre-tertiary system should be regarded as having a formative character, and not as an instrument to make classifications, education minister Pavel Nastase has said.




    Pavel Nastase: “We should change our approach and regard these assessments and evaluations of pupils, of the teaching staff, of schools and of the whole system as an opportunity to receive feedback and intervene, in an effort to improve the educational process and to place the focus on pupils. We would like our teaching staff to be well prepared to make formative evaluation during classes, and not only to give pupils quizzes, tests, exams and national evaluations. This is how we can ease the pressure exerted on pupils, giving the chance, even to those who find it difficult to pass classical tests, to show what they know. Consequently, a very important element of this survey is the formative evaluation component. In the end, this type of assessment and evaluation should lead to the creation of personalised education files for pupils to be properly trained and taught afterwards. We are currently making assessments, but in many schools this is not followed by a second stage, at which the teaching staff should capitalise on these evaluations to customise the learning process for pupils and focus on each of them”.



    In order to reach this goal, the Education Ministry is currently drafting several EU-funded programs for the pre-graduate and academic education systems, laying emphasis on the evaluation of pupils and of the teaching staff.