Radio România Internațional

Tag: underprivileged

  • July 27, 2022

    July 27, 2022

    GOVERNMENT The government of Romania
    is to pass today the implementing rules for an emergency order on rescheduling
    bank loan repayments. Instalments can be deferred for a maximum of 9 months,
    with citizens and companies having to prove that their monthly expenses have
    increased by at least 25%. The government’s decision follows a steep rise in
    inflation and a drop in people’s spending power. The agenda of today’s
    government meeting also includes the provision of emergency aid to
    underprivileged citizens. The Cabinet would like to spend some EUR 200,000 to
    support around 250 families and individuals in difficulty either because of
    fires or floods, or because of health problems. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian
    refugees in Romania remain a matter of priority for the government, which plans
    to take products from the state reserves and distribute them as aid to the
    refugees.


    ENERGY Romania is widely supported by the US, says the Romanian
    energy minister, Virgil Popescu, who had working meetings on Tuesday with
    officials from the US Department of State. In a social media post, the Romanian
    official said he had received assurances from Washington regarding support for
    the development of the Romanian civilian nuclear programme. Virgil Popescu mentioned
    that the Romanian authorities plan to complete the funding for the building of
    reactors 3 and 4 at the Cernavodă nuclear power plant by the end of the year, and
    that the financial support of the US partners is very important. The US also
    provides the assistance required for the implementation of a small modular
    reactor, the first of this kind in Romania.


    DIPLOMACY Romania is deeply anchored
    in a Euro-Atlantic system of values, security and unwavering solidarity, as a
    result, among other things, of decades of diplomatic work, the Romanian foreign
    minister Bogdan Aurescu stated today, on the celebration of 160 years since the
    Foreign Ministry was established. He reviewed the history of the institution,
    mentioning the outstanding personalities in Romanian diplomacy, and highlighted
    the current challenges. ‘When, for the first time since 1945, the threat of a
    brutal, unjustified and unprovoked war launched by Russia against our neighbour
    Ukraine looms over Europe, the implications can only be of global scale. (…) Together
    with our allies and partners, we are deeply committed to outlining a complex diplomatic
    response to this aggression that has tragic humanitarian consequences and
    incalculable economic costs,’ foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu said.


    AWARD The British PM Boris Johnson Tuesday presented the Ukrainian
    president Volodymyr Zelensky with the Sir Winston Churchill leadership award,
    news agencies report. The ceremony took place at 10 Downing Street, with
    Mr. Zelensky attending by video link. Named
    after one of Europe’s greatest war time leaders, the award is presented by the Churchill
    International Society to honour personalities that have demonstrated
    extraordinary leadership skills. Upon accepting the distinction, Volodymyr
    Zelensky said that No one knows how much time and effort it will take to
    achieve that victory, but the victory is worthwhile. This will become a joint
    history, as prominent as it was during Churchill times.


    COVID-19 Over 9,800 new SARS-CoV-2
    infections were reported over the last 24 hours in Romania, out of some 30,000
    tests, the authorities announced today. The number of Covid-19 patients in
    hospitals has reached 3,570, with 233 patients in intensive care, and 29
    COVID-related deaths were also reported. The health minister Alexandru Rafila said next week Romania might see 10,000 new cases daily. Although spreading
    very quickly, this variant of the virus causes less severe forms of the disease.


    EMPLOYMENT 70% of the Romanians working 2 jobs do so in order to
    increase their incomes in the long run, according to a poll conducted by a
    recruitment platform. According to experts, with remote work becoming
    widespread, employees are more in control of their time and therefore they find
    it easier to juggle with 2 jobs. Even so, most of them (72%) choose a part-time
    second jobs. Asked what they find to be the most difficult when working 2 jobs,
    6 out of 10 said keeping a balance between personal and professional life is
    the biggest challenge. Over 52% of the respondents believe it is impossible to
    have 2 jobs at the same time for more than a year. The poll was conducted in
    July and involved 1,200 respondents.


    WEATHER Bucharest and 14 counties in the south of Romania are today
    under a code orange alert for extreme heat, with temperatures expected to reach
    40 degrees Celsius in these regions according to the National Meteorology
    Agency. Thermal discomfort is severe, with the temperature-humidity index (THI)
    over 80. According to weather experts, periods of severe atmospheric
    instability are also expected, first in the mountains and central Romania, and
    later tonight in the south and south-east of the country as well. In Bucharest
    at noon the temperature was 35 degrees Celsius. (AMP)

  • Mother-child or child mother?

    Mother-child or child mother?


    Dire poverty, lack of education, lack of interest,
    nobody to explain them how their own body works. These are the dismal
    ingredients of a failed life experience. Today we focus on very young
    pregnancies, reported for girls younger than 15, we’re speaking about systemic
    flaws and about what can be done to mitigate such a scourge. Romania is at the
    top of a European Union chart focusing on teenage mothers. Gabriela Alexandrescu is the Executive President of Save
    the Children.


    Gabriela Alexandrescu:

    I
    won’t be mincing my words and I shall tell you that a quarter of the European
    Union’s teenage mothers are from Romania. We all know that 23% of those young mothers who have not yet turned 19 are reported for our country. We are at
    the top of the table across the European Union regarding the number of mothers
    under 15 and 2nd-placed, after Bulgaria, according to the number of mothers
    under 19. In Romania, nearly 10% of
    the births are reported for teenage mothers. Quite a few of them come from
    localities with no family doctor for the community whatsoever, or where family
    doctors are in short supply. These girls resort to self-medication during pregnancy,
    they don’t see a medical doctor to get their name registered and their
    pregnancy monitored and just wait until things are rushing forward or their
    condition gets worse. Save the Children has been actively involved in the field
    of children healthcare from across Romania, we contribute to the provision of
    the right to live taking action along five directions. One has to do with
    supplying maternities, the paediatric and the new-born sections with state-of-the-art
    medical equipment, the second pertains to developing the specialised support
    networks for mothers and children in the rural communities, the third such
    intervention direction is the one by means of which we stage specialised
    courses of the teams of professionals (medical teams, mainly), through the
    fourth intervention direction we develop education-for-healthcare programs and
    research programs, debates with the authorities and specialists for the change
    of social policies and the laws, when needed. So far, we have worked with more
    than 56,000 pregnant females (children under 15) and we saw the change. Each
    year we work in 46 communities with mixed teams of specialists, with trained
    nurses, social assistants, psychologists who are familiar with the realities of
    those areas and address the specific reality of the young mothers and the
    children.


    Oana Motea is a UNICEF Health Specialist. She has
    drawn attention to the fact that the scourge of being pregnant when very young
    is transmitted from one generation to the next, within the family.


    Oana Motea:

    The conclusions of the Unicef – Samas report, launched earlier this year, has
    revealed that pregnancies of mothers older than 15 could be prevented through
    education and family education programs tailored according to the
    socio-cultural milieu those adolescents and the fathers-to-be live in. The
    phenomenon is cyclical, it tends to repeat itself in the same family, from one
    generation to the next and goes with the poor economic, social and healthcare
    condition. There is no clear-cut identification of the role the authorities
    play, and of their corroborated responsibilities, as regards reproduction in
    the case of the younger generations and the prevention of pregnancies in the
    case of underage mothers. There is a need for integrated public policies
    capable of targeting education for healthcare, awareness-raising efforts at
    community level and tailoring the adaptation of the interventions to suit the
    teenagers’ psychology and emotions.


    Mother-child or child-mother? It’s hard to tell.
    UNICEF’s data on Romania are quite baffling, at that.

    Oana Motea:


    In 2019, more than 16,000 pregnancies were reported
    among teenagers, down by 9% as against
    2018. Notwithstanding, with
    the adolescents who are younger than 15, we noticed an 11% increase in the north-western
    and north-eastern regions. These percentages reveal how serious the problem is,
    at once calling for educational action to be taken, capable of targeting all
    groups of teenagers, using specific communication channels, with different
    message presentation forms, tailored to suit their needs.


    A solution to mitigate the phenomenon, which tends to
    become a scourge? Doctors’ offices in the rural areas, targeted programs. There
    is no other way.

    Save the Children’s Gabriela Alexandrescu:


    As of late
    we have even launched a survey among adolescent girls in vulnerable
    communities, in partnership with the authorities in line, with the Romanian
    Senate, it was a survey targeting teenage mothers in rural and underprivileged areas.
    We did carry the survey over July-August 2021, in 46 communities across
    Romania and unfortunately, our survey has pointed to a worrying, chronic
    deficiency of the healthcare services for the teenage mother, also pointing to
    detrimental social aspects, relevant to that effect. We can say 16 years and
    three months is the average age when the first child is born, among teenage
    girls in the underprivileged rural areas. Those with more than one child are 18 and one month
    old when the second child is born, on average, and are 19 years and five months
    old when their third child is born. 40% of the mothers and the pregnant
    teenagers in the rural areas have stated they have never taken the medical
    tests recommended during pregnancy because they had no access to medical
    services or no financial resources to do that. 87% of them have never used and
    do not know any contraceptive method. 72% of the young women and girls have
    responded they lived in very modest conditions, in one, maybe two rooms,
    sharing the premises with people from other families. 55% of them have stated the
    money they got was not enough for the bare necessities, quite a few of them
    relied on their children’s allowance, while a great number of them responded
    the pandemic has negatively affected the adult’s chances to work for their
    families. There are mothers, who, not having turned 25 yet, have given birth to
    their fifth child already. And here we have a problem, a worrying situation.
    That is why we, those with Save the Children, need to get actively involved to
    alleviate the scourge in the underprivileged rural communities, deprived of
    material resources and information means. And we need to carry on with those
    information, specific intervention programs, aimed at facilitating access to
    socio-medical services.


    The good news is that the Save the Children
    Organisation has also expanded to Republic of Moldova. The successful programs
    Save the Children implemented there proved reliable.

    Gabriela Alexandrescu:




    The
    successful example we had in Romania, we’re also taking it to the Republic of
    Moldova, as there, we work with the Healthcare for Children Association and
    Children’s Rights Information and Documentation Centre in Chisinau. So as of
    this year, we have that integrated, community program covering 16 counties in
    Romania and 16 districts in Republic of Moldova. Our effort is essential, given
    that we’re all too familiar with the fact that teenage pregnancy is associated
    with higher pregnancy risks. High blood pressure, anaemia, premature birth,
    underweight new-borns, postpartum depression and suchlike, while on the other
    hand, premature maternity exposes the young mothers to the risk of school
    dropout, to the grim prospects of being engulfed by the vicious circle of
    poverty, with a transgenerational aftermath. As part of the integrated
    interventions we had in the underprivileged rural areas, advised by the local
    specialists are the teenage girls, but also their families. It is important
    that we have an unmediated communication with the girls.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)

  • A library for the Roma children in Bucharest

    A library for the Roma children in Bucharest

    An underprivileged ethnic minority in economic, social and other respects, the Roma can overcome this condition, and one of the ways to do this is through culture and education. This is the idea behind the Roma Childrens Library, a project that started 3 years ago with the collaboration between the Swedish writer Gunilla Lundren, the Romanian-born Swedish book illustrator and publisher Arina Stoenescu, Thomas Acton, a Romani studies professor from the UK, and a Swedish journalist and ethnic Roma, Fred Taikon.



    The library is hosted by a building which is also home to another, broader social and cultural project, called the Museum of Roma Culture, located in Giulesti, a neighbourhood in the Romanian capital city Bucharest where a lot of Roma people live. Originally, the library consisted in books, furniture and toys donated by various contributors.



    It is there, on the neglected outskirts of Bucharest, where urban space merges into an underprivileged rural atmosphere, that we met writer Gunilla Lundgren. Known mostly as an author of childrens books, Gunilla set up a PEN Club, a creative writing club, for the Roma children in her home country. Based on the experiences, readings and talks within the club, she wrote 3 books and created a radio series together with the children she is working with. Given her relations with the Roma minority in Sweden, the writer found it easy to connect with the Roma children in Eastern Europe, in spite of the differences between the 2 communities.



    Gunilla Lundgren: “Its many different groups in Sweden. We have what we call the Swedish Roma, who lived there for many, many years, and we have also newcomers now. We have Roma from former Yugoslavia, when the war was up they came there. We have many other groups of Roma, we have Russian Roma, and Finnish Roma, who have different religions and different languages. We have now in Sweden many people from Romania and Bulgaria, who beg on the streets in Sweden, and the Swedish Roma children found that very sad. They are not beggars, the Swedish Roma children. They live in apartments and their parents are working, and they feel lucky, they cant identify with the people who are begging. And then we discussed this a lot and we asked, ‘what is happening with the children whose mothers sit and beg in the streets? The Swedish Roma children said, ‘we must help the children, the children are in Romania. And they should not become beggars. We should give them books.‘ So the income from the books we write now in Pen Club goes into making these books that Arina helps us release, to give to the children here, because they should not become beggars.



    Pioneer Press, the publishing house founded by book illustrator and translator Arina Stoenescu, marked the 3 years of life of the Roma Childrens Library with the release of a bilingual, Romanian and Romani book entitled “Happy Easter! This is the 3rd bilingual book launched by this publisher and intended for Roma children. Their author, Gunilla Lundgren, told us about the involvement and support needed for the Roma Childrens Library:



    Gunilla Lundgren: “What I see is that the library is here and I think its hard work here as well, we work hard on both sides. We call this library ‘our friend library. And Arina comes here, she writes letters to our children and we write letters to the children here. So, they really feel that we are friends, they write to each other. We make exhibitions, in our library, with the letters that the children here in Giulesti write. Also, now, our children are here in photos, there are photos of the Swedish Roma children here in your library, and this makes them feel this friendship.



    Luminita Ancuta, from the Museum of Roma Culture in Giulesti, sees this library as a sort of club of the children in the neighbourhood:



    Luminita Ancuta: “This initiative has been beneficial, because many of the children here have parents who, for various reasons, do not have time to spend with their kids, to read to them and to help them develop this kind of skills. Since we opened the Roma Childrens Library, we have focused especially on reading activities. We simply read stories to them or together with them. The most important thing was that weve brought them here, because in this neighbourhood there is no playground or bigger park. We only have a small park next to one of the 2 schools in our neighbourhood.



    Reading helps children, irrespective of their social or cultural background, to develop in several respects. It helps them concentrate, ask questions, give answers and communicate.



    Luminita Ancuta: “We have been reading stories related to the history of the Roma people. When the library opened, Gunilla Lundgren also launched one of her books, entitled Sophia, which tells the story of a Roma Holocaust survivor. The book is actually designed as a bilingual, Romanian and Romani cartoon. And when we read this story with the children, we noticed that they know very little about Roma history. They were very moved by the story of the little girl who lived in a concentration camp and went through dramatic experiences. Children are very curious by nature. When they see the books on the shelves, they take them out, browse them and ask all sorts of questions. Many of them have problems reading and ask us to read for them. Sometimes they bring along their younger siblings who, even though they cannot read, copy our moves and attitudes. What we want to do here is whet their appetite for reading, because only through reading can they discover who they are.



    Children discover themselves, but they discover the others as well, because the Roma Childrens Library is also open to the children who do not belong to this ethnic group and who lived in this overlooked part of Bucharest.



    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)