A special treat

I spent Wednesday afternoon with Carolyn (bottom right of pic) who is the B.C.C centre's worker for people with disabilities.  Originally from Vancoover Canada, she has worked here for three years, building relationships with children, adults and families suffering with physical and mental disability.  In Romania, whilst there is a form of small disability pension, there isn't any state support for disabled people and its down to local and international charities to bridge that gap.  

We went to the neighbouring city of Deva to visit two girls with Down's Syndrome, Lezouke who's 20 (top middle of pic) and Doreena 46 (bottom left of pic).  Also in this picture with me is Elaina who is Lezouke's mum and Heidi from England who is working with the centre for a year.  After visiting Lezouke for a while she got over her shyness of me and because of my name started calling me Michael Jackson because she's a big fan (of him, not me).  So I thought it a suitable ice breaker to try and bust some moon walk moves, which she found very funny, but probably not in a good way though.  She soon welcomed me as a friend and was giving me high fives and other friendship signs she uses, so I was very touched.  We took her to meet up with Doreena who lives with her 70 year old mother who is now housebound, to take them for a cake in a Patisserie and a walk round the indoor market.  This is a special treat for them both, who otherwise, hardly ever get out.  There is a group that Doreena attends for people with learing difficulties, but they don't do any activities together, just meet up.  Knowing the support available in the UK for people with disabilities, their families and carers, I find it very hard to comprehend the situation for them here with so much needing to be done to improve their qualty of life.

There's so many challenges here with regard to disability, with the biggest being attitude and stigma.  The majority of the public are still effected by old ideas, sometimes even within the church, that disabled people aren't of equal value, and it's not uncommon for them to be rejected, excluded and even physically beaten up.  Even on our short outing I could sense unease in some people on the streets, who stared at us and sometimes gave us a wide berth.  This is hurtfull enough to someone who is physically disabled as they understand what people think, but for people like Lezouke and Doreena, they have no understanding of why people treat them this way, they don't see themselves as any different than anyone else, and in my view they're right because they're not different.  They are human beings, and absolutely none of us are perfect.

Lezouke's mum Elaina is passionate about improving life for disabled people and is concerned about who will look after Lezouke when one day she is no longer able to.  The only option at the moment is a state mental hospital, which despite the non-existence of community services, is a far worse prospect.  She's desparate to establish a home for people with mental disabilities in the form of supported and independent living in a semi sheltered environment.  She's even been to the UK to see what kind of facilities and services we offer.  Of course, as with most of the visions of passionate caring people here, what they lack is the resources to fullfil the vision.  Elaina also faces the challenge of inspiring others who, because of the current situation, don't beleive its worth the fight as they think nothing will change.  I find this so frustrating as I know that if enough people fight for change, it can happen.  Romanian's only need to look back at their own 1989 revolution to realise that.  I find myself wishing I was one of the secret millionaires from the TV programme, because there are som many worthwhile projects here just waiting to take off if only they had the resources.  There's so many people ready and willing to work really hard to make change happen, they just need a break.

 

I'll be meeting some of Carolyn's support group members today when we take them for a picnic, but there are so many that I won't meet.  As an example of how desparate some situations are, she told me about a family she works with just along the street who total thirteen, including eleven children, eight of whom have Down's Syndrome, and they all live in a three room high rise appartment (that's three rooms in total, not three bedrooms).  It's incomprehensible to me how these people manage to cope with the little or no support they have, but yet having seen one or two of these children playing on the street, they seem happy and contented.  They're truly amazing!!