My memories of an amazing visit to Romania recently are still very vivid and I will try to give something of a taste of them in this article. I was asked to take over as co-ordinator for Romania from Leo Edgar, who has supported the SVP Conference there over the last ten years. The purpose of my visit was to bring cash in grants awarded by the National SVP Council to the SVP Conference in Romania for various projects. It was timed to take in the Grand Opening of the Impreuna Project in Campulung, a scheme providing employment for former orphanage children, brainchild of Fr. Petru Paulet and brought to fruition with the help of the local SVP Conference. My companian and interpreter was Sr. Agnes of the Sisters of Charity of St. Paul who has been working in Romania since her retirement as a Headteacher in Birmingham some ten years ago and who is a member of the SVP team in Motru.

Children waiting for the next sitting for lunch at the canteen in Motru.

After Sunday Mass I gave Fr. Petru his grant for his beloved project and went off to meet the President of the local SVP Conference. In the office she shows me files with details of all the families helped by the Conference, some 375 families or 2,000 people. Unemployment is very high and of those who do have a job many receive the equivalent of just 2 or 3 US dollors a month. One of the highlights of my visit in Campulung is the visits we make with Sr. Agnes. We visit the Ciurea family in one of the tower blocks. We meet a mother with four children whose husband is unemployed. They only survive thanks to the SVP soup kitchen. We visit Maria, a lady in her 80's. Her son is in hospital and her daughter-in-law earns a few dollars sweeping the steps in the tower-blocks. Maria lives in a one-room apartment about the size of a small bedroom and she sleeps here with four of her grandchildren. We manage to squeeze into the only available space left by a cupboard, a wall unit, a wood-burning stove and a basket of firewood.
Down the corridor we visit Irina Tinculescu with her two children, Florina, 2 and Stefan, 9months. Irina's husband left her. She now lives in this apartment, bought by the SVP and she depends on the soup-kitchen for food. Another apartment with three small rooms is home to nine members of the Gunag family. There is no heating or hot water. All these families tell their stories simply, as a matter of fact but are all delighted to see us.

Five members of the nine-strong Gunag family who share
three small rooms with no heating or lighting.

After the Grand Opening of the Impreuna project I'm hustled away by Sr. Agnes who has commandeered Fr. Gheorghe to drive us over to the soup-kitchen. This operates three days a week and is run by the novices and the SVP. A crowd of about 50 women and children wait in an orderly queue to have their lemonade bottles or saucepans to be filled with soup, which they can re-heat back at home. The kitchen at the back is a stainless steel wonder and was donated by an Irish businessman who was in the audience at one of Sr. Agnes's talks during a visit home. Fr. Gheorghe then drives us to his home in Slatina, an extraordinary journey on roads that are quite well maintained, but we share the single track carriageway with lorries, horses and carts, even people on foot!
Slatina is the destination for my fattest envelope, £20,000 to the social centre for the 400 or so deaf people who live in the area and who up to now have had no facilities whatsoever. There are plans to provide computers and a safe homework area for the schoolchildren. This summer a youth group from Italy will organise a play-scheme. Later that evening Fr. Gheorghe drives me and Sr. Agnes to Pitesti, where we stay the night in Fr. Iosif's presbytery. He is overwhelmed with the contents of the envelope for the SVP Conference and that very night telephones a Conference member who is visiting Germany and tells her to buy sweets for the SVP's Christmas visits.

Novice sisters of St. Paul serve soup and bread 3 days a week
at the soup-kitchen in Campulung.

Next Morning we reach Motru where Sr. Agnes lives. She herself is a member of the SVP Conference, which runs a canteen for 200 children every day. Motru is desperately poor. Built from nothing as a mining town with miners brought in from elsewhere, the mine is now run down and there is nothing else. But if Motru is poor, nothing prepares me for Matasari, half an hour's drive away. We turn off the main road, pretty with trees in their beautiful autumn colours to a grey, dusty expanse, lined with skeletal concrete blocks - unfinished apartments. We stop at one of the few inhabited ones and the car is surrounded by a swarm of children, excited to see Sr. Agnes. This is Tudora's place. She provides a meal for up to 150 children, four days a week. She makes soup sent over regularly in the van from Ireland and adds tinned fish to it. They bring in the children, 30 at a time and sit them at tables, set with plates of hot food, bread and hot chocolate. Tudora leads them in saying "The Lord's Prayer" together before they eat.
It is hard to leave Tudora but the family's good wishes and laughter follow us down the road as we depart.

"David's Emporium" WWW Internet Site fully supports the work of Sister Agnes in Motru, and Campulung, Romania. PLEASE find some time to set up some fund-raising activities, a collection box, or just send a cheque. I'm thanking you in advance of your kind support and help and I know that Sister Agnes and the people of MOTRU will be thrilled if only you could just send a small donation. [Sorry, but no goods. Cash will enable direct specific aid where it is most needed. Thank you.]