STREET KIDS’ SAVIOUR
A CHARITY CO-FOUNDED BY A COUNTY WEXFORD MAN 20 YEARS AGO HAS HELPED AROUND 5,000 STREET CHILDREN IN BUCHAREST, ROMANIA, WRITES DAVID LOOBY
IN the early 1990s County Wexford man John Nolan witnessed first hand the horror children in Bucharest endured on a daily basis. Having set out on a mission to help poor people in post-communist Eastern Europe, John was so struck by the plight of these orphans that he decided there and then to devote his life to helping as many children as he could.
John, 73, of The Forge House, Whitechurch, met Dr Viorica Vasiliu and came up with the plan of opening a day care centre for the children in Romania’s capital city, Bucharest. To date John, Dr Vasiliu and his colleagues have helped thousands of children, several of whom have gone on to third level education.
A plasterer by trade, John worked for many years in England returning home to Whitechurch outside New Ross in 1972. John’s voluntary work started with his local youth club in Ballykelly.
While attending a prayer meeting in Limerick in 1991 he heard of the plight of Romanian orphans and immediately set about organising food and medical aid for transporting to the orphanages in Romania.
In 1992 John offered to give his annual holidays working in an orphanage in Bucharest. His job was to replace all the windows and doors. Following this experience he saw that there was a huge amount of effort needed to try and give these children the very basics in life.
‘We started off working as volunteers with the Mother Teresa nuns in Romania, Croatia, and Albania,’ John said.
John and some friends travelled to these countries for three weeks at a time, renovating houses.
The Street Children of Bucharest was founded by John, Brian Geary from Limerick and Colm Molloy from Carlow.
The group bought a site and built a purpose-built daycare and a residential home called St Joseph’s Home where 46 children can be accommodated.
‘In 1997 Colm, Brian and I said it was time to figure out what we could do for all the street children who were hungry and delicate. They would live day to day, begging.’
This lead them to Dr Visilu who left her job working in a city hospital to work treating the children suffering from rabies, drug abuse, infections and in some cases Aids, having been pimped out as prostitutes from ages eight and up.
‘We left in March 1992 for Bucharest as volunteers for a charity based in North Wexford. I was shocked by the conditions people were living in. There was no food in the shops. We were bringing food and our truck was held up at the border so we had to live on watery soup and bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the three weeks. There wasn’t a value on human life in the city like we know. I remember meeting a boy who kept stubbing cigarettes out on his arm and another boy who was set on fire. These street children have no identities, no papers so they can’t get a job. They feel no one cares for them so they are nomads, ghosts, wandering the streets, high on glue. Many live in sewers, destitute, and because the police don’t go to check on them, some die.’
In the summer of 1994 the number of children seeking the streets of Bucharest as a refuge started to increase and by 1996 there was an estimated 5,000 children on the streets. This trend continued up to 2003, a year when Romania had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world at 15.3 deaths per 1,000 live births. A 2015 Eurostat data report revealed that Romania has repeatedly had the highest infant mortality rate in Europe, standing at 9.2 deaths per 1,000 live births.
‘In the early days I found it very difficult to understand that here were we living good lives in a country so close by and this was a country crippled with poverty. It shocked me. These were a people who were told by their leader every day that they were no good. He turned off the power on Christmas Day so they couldn’t cook their Christmas dinner. It was very hurtful for the people going through all that and trying to live with that.’
He said: ‘Many of the children had no identity as they didn’t know their parents. If the mother died they would be left to fend for themselves in the city. In 1997 we rented a property and we worked on that for a couple of years. It was a day care centre but it wasn’t successful as the doctor wanted to keep the children in overnight for treatment so we started preparations to buy a site in 1998 and we bought it in 1999. It had a green area around it and a doctor’s surgery, beds for 45 children, social workers and nurses.’
At Casa Sf. Iosif children are given clean clothes and food and they receive medical attention.
THESE STREET CHILDREN HAVE NO IDENTITIES, NO PAPERS SO THEY CAN’T GET A JOB. THEY FEEL NO ONE CARS FOR THEM SO THEY ARE NOMADS, GHOSTS, WANDERING THE STREETS. MANY LIVE IN SEWERS, DESTITUTE