S. Elaine Fortin is a full-time student in the Master's of Social Work program at Boston College, Boston MA. For three weeks last summer, S. Elaine drew on the support of the Congregation's Global Awareness Fund and visited Romania as part of a class studying the social welfare system in a post-Communist state. In her words:

I traveled with a group of 16 students and the professor to Cluj, Bistrisia, Satu Mare and Siget, Romania. We had four goals: to visit and help set up foster care programs in the orphanages, to do a needs assessment in the gypsy camps, to begin building a Habitat for Humanity home and to research an individual topic of interest.

I began my journey with a few days of orientation in Budapest, Hungary.

 

Here my group met with Habitat for Humanity to learn the logistics and then it was on to the Habitat build. We spent a week working beside the new owners of this house. We dug drainage ditches and raised the walls of one room.

Since I had hurt my knee just before leaving, they gave me the "special" job of straightening bent nails. For one week in 130E heat, we worked our hearts out. Do you have any idea how many different meditations one can make with a bent nail? You would be amazed! But what laughs we had, and we left with a real sense of accomplishment.

From there it was on to the orphanages. Since 2004, there has been a ban on all Romanian adoptions. The government, they say, was selling children all over the world, similar to trafficking. Since the fall of Communism in 1989, most Romanians have been living in poverty. They're unable to feed their children, so they frequently abandon them on the doorstep of an orphanage.

It was our hope to help the orphanages develop a foster care program for the children, and at least we gave them a beginning. I had done some fundraising before the trip so I was able to leave an orphanage with four suitcases of bandages, vitamins and basic drugs, along with a donation to help meet the other needs.

We were not prepared in any way for what we saw in the gypsy camps of northern Romania.

The gypsies live in absolute poverty with little to eat, and many of the children have no clothes to wear on a daily basis. Gypsies are considered outcasts of society all over the world; and have the reputation of being beggars, liars and thieves. They live day by day, often moving to find food or work.

I found their reputation to be so unfair. The group we met was so welcoming and interested in making their lives better for their children! We completed a needs assessment with about 30 families in the camp and hope to keep in touch with our Romanian contacts to continue to help with more funds.

Since I'm interested in gerontology, my research was on the elderly of Romania. I'm sorry to report that many seniors live in deplorable conditions. They live in clean but overcrowded clinics, often 15 to 20 beds to a room with only one staff person for every 50 patients. Their board is paid for by the government but the residents receive no portion of their pension for daily necessities. Many have no pensions, because they lived under Communist rule for so long. They were overjoyed to be receiving company, even the company of strangers!

My trip was a learning experience and a spiritual journey. I relearned what the vow of poverty is and what true freedom means to me. I have a new awareness of how much governments can affect our lives. The people of Romania have been free for 17 years now and have just entered the European Union. Hopefully their future will be brighter with the aid of their new allies!