Romanian Runaway is an issue-driven fictional novella inspired by my experience in Romania where I first met Ionel Constantin.
Read “Why I Wrote Romanian Runaway – Part 1”
Ionel, co-founder of Asociatia Umanitara Samariteanul Seniorilor (translated Humanitarian Association “Samaritan of the Seniors”) has worked with the street children and homeless people of Bucharest since 1971. He currently works as coordinator and director of social programs. His desire is to bring “an oasis of hope and joy [to] the faces of the oppressed and saddened of those living in the poverty line and without the power to be heard.”
Samaritan of the Seniors is a non-profit association started on March 4, 2004 with government permission. The team is composed of a social worker, psychologist, medical assistant, and street worker. The objective of the project is contact with the non-government institutions and state institutions involved in preventing family and school abandonment by the minor (e.g. school, Department of Child Protection, City Hall, police) and direct contact by the specialized staff of the foundation with the street children in Bucharest. Amongst other things, they provide clothes, shoes and nourishing food; medical assistance; general counseling; and encouragement to the children to attend school. A primary aim is integration within the family, foster families or small family-type institutions with the long-term goal of reintegrating the street children into society. To stimulate the integrated child and motivate him to stay in the family, school and society in general, the foundation organizes special outings such as short holidays, trips, and sports activities, etc.
In an article for The Christian Magazine published August 1997, Ionel wrote “Most street children in Bucharest are from ruined families, with no understanding and time for their children. When children come from this kind of family and have their first contact with the street, they start to taste the bitterness of freedom and those sweet pleasures that only lead them towards destruction, misery and getting hurt by their own harmful irresponsibility towards their own lives.”
There are so many harmful things that happen to a person who constantly lacks protection. One evening I asked a couple of the kids that I took from the streets to our orphanage, “Tell me what do you actually feel when sniffing that “glue” (a powdered solvent called “Aurolac” or “bronze”). One of them answered, “I don’t know. I suddenly start to get dizzy and then I can see all sorts of weird objects, For example, once I felt I was fighting against a snake, or I just realize that the objects around me start to change size and shape or many other bizarre things.” The other one affirmed that the Aurolac helps him to become stronger, to live on deceitful dreams of bravery and to sleep carelessly. Then I asked them if they really believed all those dreams to be real happenings and they replied, “Of course we don’t believe them! But all these images and dreams make us feel good.
Follow Ionel’s work with Humanitarian Association “Samaritan of the Seniors” on Facebook and learn more about his work with the street children of Romania.
Look for Romanian Runaway on Amazon soon!
