Newsletter 2020

Ten Years of Hope

Speranta means hope in the Romanian language and it is the name of the Centre for children with multiple and complex needs in Sibiu where we have sent volunteers each summer since 2010.

Over those 10 years we have supported 123 newly qualified Occupational Therapists and Speech and Language Therapists to work as volunteers in the Bianca Project. There have been 48 volunteer therapists returning each year. Some of them now act as Supervisors and provide support and guidance to the new volunteers. Six of them have be-come Trustees of Share.

Chloe Williams (far right) was one of the first volunteers back in 2010. She says “I had just finished University, full of inspirations about how I was going to change the world (high hopes I know). The opportunity to go and help children in Romania was one I definitely did not want to miss. This was Share’s first trip so it was a bit of unknown territory. I remember talking with the two other girls that were with me, about all the things we were going to do, the Romanian songs we were going to learn to sing to the children, the occupational therapy treatment that we could input. Then we arrived. Things were harder than we expected, the environment, the opinions that were held by the public and even the carers, about people with disabilities. My high expectations changed and I spent the best of 2 months trying to get the children to just play and giving them some love and fun. It was so difficult coming home and knowing that things may have just gone back to normal for the children, my heart ached wanting to be back with them. The experience changed who I was as a person and this has gone with me through all of my career. The project has moved on so much since that first trip that I went on, the impact that all the volunteers have had on the children, carers and the place as a whole has been so wonderful to hear about. Achievements have been made that I would have never thought possible on that first trip and I know that with the ongoing support of the volunteers there are certainly even better things to come”

Samantha McNeilly describes her first day at the centre back in 2012. “I was 20 and had not yet found my confidence. As I stepped into the first house in the compound, I was met by 8 boys; most of them wheel-chair users with multiple sensory impairments. I will always remember the moment one boy held me by the wrist and stared me in the eyes with the biggest grin imaginable. At that moment I did not realise what the project would mean to me, or to the children who benefit from it”.

Since 2012 Samantha has returned each summer to work with the children. She has been a supervisor (support) for the new volunteers and has become a Trustee. She de-scribes a typical day at the Centre: “The day begins with a volunteer team meeting, deciding which of the children we will work with today and what our aims are. We then spend the day working with the children, building relationships with the carers and ensuring each child’s day is filled with laughter and smiles.”

Lindsay Small writes: I have been involved with SHARE since 2013, aged 20 and very naïve to the world. I was shy and lacked confidence in every aspect. The Bianca Project, not only helped my confidence personally, but also professionally as an occupational therapist. I had no idea that this would be the basis for mycareer. I left a piece of my heart in Sibiu in 2013, and each time I go back I leave more and more there. Having been to Romania for our project 9 times, I can truly say that this life changing experience, achieves more and more each year. Even though we have not been able to visit in 2020, it does not mean that whilst we have been in the UK we have not planned for the future and completed fundraising both for the Bianca Project and Jim’s House.

The Bianca Project achieves more and more each year, and our biggest achievements happened in 2019. With the continuity of regular supervisors and returning volunteers building a rapport with the Director and the staff at the Centre we have built the trust to be able to take some of the children out to experience different environments. We have taken children to the Salt Lakes, to swimming pools, out to restaurants and to the local park. Whilst this does not sound like a great achievement in the UK, this was for many of the children the first time beyond the gates of the centre. There is nothing like the smile of a child after trying his or her first mouthful of an ice cream!

Lindsay also talks about hope for the future ….

We hope that Jim’s House will continue for many more years, for this to be a home for life for the three young people that it supports. It will take lots of fundraising efforts which we regularly discuss as trustees. We want the three young people to be able to access the community more and more, and we would like the support workers that Share funds to be able to work with the young people to access public transport as independently as possible. We would also like – when the pandemic allows, for the volunteers to be able to take them away for a few nights to give them more opportunities. Love Light Romania have another project in Jacodu working with a Roma Gypsy Community, and this would be a fantastic opportunity for our three young people to experience, as they have polytunnels so can engage in lots of gardening activities, and opportunities to meet new people.

We have hope for the future to be so bright for both the children in Speranta and the young adults in Jim’s House. We have hope for the future that we can help educate the children’s carers further on their individual health conditions and the resulting physical and emotional needs and how to support the children with these. We have so much hope that we can continue to fundraise for these projects to make them have the out-comes the children and young people fully deserve.

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