The Santa Clause Volunteer in Romania - 2008 Christmas Project



Dear European NGOs & Volunteers across Europe,


I hope you are in good spirits
and thus ready for a Christmas invitation :)


We, Societatea Phoenix Carita - Romania- have been re-organizing this project for the past 2 years and maybe with your help this year we will succeed as well.



Introduction

Societatea Phoenix Carita VIA Youth Centre - is created by a teacher from a small Romanian city called Ramnicu Valcea. The SPC -V.I.A Youth Centre Horezu team, are volunteer advocates working for the dissemination of the rights of youth in difficulty and for the creation of a better future for youth in a Romanian society. SPC-VIA Youth Centre is orientating its activities on equal opportunities, voluntary work, youth Initiatives and entrepreneurship.

The president of this NGO and the volunteers are involved and very caring with regard to the children we are trying to help : children with disabilities and Roma kindergarden children living in the villages near Ramnicu Valcea city.



Project description

We are inviting you to take part in our Christmas project and ask you to become Santa Clause in Romania this year and send this organizationsmall used toys, books or balloons .

At receiving your gifts we will make small packages for as many of the children as possible and we will organize a transportation method to the houses of the children and their parents whom live in the remote areas of Ramnicu Valcea whom cannot afford to buy anything or to organize anything for Christmas in their own homes- and we will give the children your gifts with your names on them so they will know the person and the country the gift is coming from. If you d also write a note to them that would be greatly appreciated. It can be in your own language or in English- but that would mean a great deal for them. We want to create the feeling that they are not alone and that they can make a difference in their future . They just have to believe that change is possible!

We will make pictures while the children receive their gifts, and we ll send them to each and every one of you to see the smiles that you ve put on the children s faces!


At the end of the event, the organization Societatea Phoenix Carita will send you a Certificate for being The Best Santa Clause Volunteer in Romania for the 2008- 2009 Christmas !

You can put in on our wall in your home ( or in the classroom - if you are a teacher ) - knowing that this year you ve actively helped Romanian children in real difficulties!

You will thus enter our Christmas Club - The Santa Clause Representation in Romania and stay in touch with the present and past participants of this project- all people with a soft side and a big heart and willing to really help when they can . You might find it useful to enter such a club - in case you want to announce your own present or future projects to us!

I do not expect you to immediately jump and help these children, whom are badly dressed and have no winter clothes and no alternatives for the lives they life, whom wouldn t, in case they are already 18, get a job very easily on account on discriminatory and background basis.

But SPC and its president have been working with children like this since 1992 and I am sure that with your help we ll succeed in making the children feel they do have a chance to adapt to the society and maybe they do not have to become thieves to be able to survive and maybe they don t have to rely on drugs in order to stay alive further in life. With a little bit of help from you :(balloons , toys , clothes, shoes, children s books or drawing books) as few or as many as you have time to put in a package and send it to us considering your postal expenses as well, we ll use it wisely and we ll try to make the children feel as part of a bigger family!!

We ll make them realize that they are not alone in this world and especially not on Christmas day and we ll try to take from their shoulders the burden of continuing loneliness and their feeling of misfits and of being absolutely not cared for or loved by their own families or brothers.

You should know that these children come from broken or very poor families in very remote villages and areas around the city of Ramnicu Valcea and that their parents sometimes come from alcoholic families with deep violence behaviors and that if the children are not helped while they are still young and influential - they might eventually find themselves on the same road .

Moreover, as we are not yet experts, we would appreciate your help and your advice on what to do to create and revive a feeling of a better life for them in their future .

I think you can do that by showing that somebody far away has been thinking about them. The number of the children is:
  1. for kinder garden= 32
  2. for primary school children with disabilities = 69
  3. for high school Roma children= 55
If you d like to help us , and send some toys,please write to
roxanici007@yahoo.com and we will answer all your further questions.

At the bottom of this page you can see pictures from this event The Christmas Project called " Santa Clause comes to everybody" from 2 years ago and from last year "The Best Santa Clause in Romania" project:

If you can t please write to us and we ll send the pictures to you personally.

Have a nice week all you possible Santa Clauses in Romania !

& We hope to hear from you soon!


Roxana & Lia