Asociatia "Pe Lunca" Ajutoare Umanitare Romania

Our organisation Pe Lunca Ajutoare Umanitare Romania (PLAUR) is located in the small mountain village of Vaidei, which is part of the ‘comuna’ Romos, consisting of 4 villages: Romos, Vaidei, Pischinti and Romosel. It’s a typical peaceful village situated in a beautiful mountain area in Transylvania. We work in all of the villages in our 'comuna', as well as the Roma gypsy villages of Romos, Orastie and Geoagiu, where we also have a social center. We help both Romanians and Roma’s, working hard on the integration of Roma's into Romanian culture by helping them to work together. Our primary objective is helping the poorest people and children, to let children enjoy their childhood, but to also guide them towards the adult life through non-formal learning, educational and social programs. We want to break the vicious circle of poverty through education, aid, games and care. There are a lot of needs in the Romanian villages, but especially in the Roma villages the situation is devastating. Many Roma’s have very bad housing situations. Most of them don’t have jobs and don’t even get the chance to because of huge discrimination. Many children don’t go to school, they need to beg on the streets, or just because the importance of education has not been taught to them. Roma’s are seen as the scum of society and few people care about them. With the consequence that it’s very hard for them to get by and live normal lives. No education, no hygiene, no job, very little respect. This is why the environment in the Roma villages can be chaotic, dirty and miserable. In the Romanian villages the standard is much higher already, but even there there can still be a lot of poverty. We provide educational children’s programs in Vaidei and in the Roma villages of Romos and Geoagiu. Through games and non-formal learning we try to teach the children good values and behaviour, which often they don’t learn at home. We help the children with their homework so that they would stay motivated to go school and not fall behind. Many of the children have learning difficulties and poor school performances, which often would result in them leaving school early and not finishing their education. Through the help we provide, their learning skills improve, they grow in confidence and their grades improve. We battle discrimination by putting Romanian and Roma children together, teaching them to respect each other. In the Roma village of Geoagiu we have a social center which works together with a care coordinator and school mediator towards a better education for the children. In the center the children can come and receive help with their homework, come to after-school activities which focus on good morals and principles through games, music and non-formal learning, they learn about hygiene and social interaction. We also have an Adopt-a-Child program which provides individual help for the children. The children are followed-up in their education and home life. We provide sports and recreational programs because we believe that having fun is also important. The programs show the children how to work together in a team and how to play fair. We also provide separate programs for the teens, focused especially on their needs. In the vacation times we organise more programs than usual, making sure the children won’t just hang around all day, but are busy learning and playing. For Easter we organise a youth camp, which gets them out of their environment and gives them a chance to meet other children and participate in many group activities. In the future we will also start sewing lessons for women in the center in Geoagiu, there will be elderly care through social interactions and games and there will be a Mom and Babies Club, which will allow young mothers to come with their babies and interact with other young moms and have a safe place to ask questions and learn about child care from a social worker. We keep records of each family through social inquiries, which give u