Success Story

 

Off the Streets
and Into School

Bacau, Romania — You know you are not in an ordinary Romanian classroom when the children around you are dancing and giggling. And when the tables and chairs are not arranged in tidy rows and the walls are brightly painted and decorated with the children’s own artwork. And when the children are fed a hot lunch and taught how to make a PowerPoint presentation in the after-school program.

“We do whatever it takes to get these kids into school at an early age,” said Leslie Hawke, co-founder of Asociatia Ovidiu Rom, an organization that gets children off the streets and into school by providing a variety of support services to both the children and their families. “We deal not only with the whole child but also the whole environment. And that includes working with the local administration to make school a more positive place for children who have traditionally been scorned by the system.”

From the 14th to the mid-19th century, most Roma (commonly referred to as Gypsies) in Romania were slaves. Today, 90 percent are unemployed and face intense discrimination. Despite Romania’s accession to the European Union in January 2007, its literacy rate is going down. Roma children have the highest illiteracy rates and the vast majority do not advance beyond eighth grade. This makes it virtually impossible for them to hold a legal job, and many Roma children end up begging on the streets.

It was one such child, Alexandru, who motivated Hawke, a Peace Corps volunteer in Bacau, to get involved during the summer of 2000. She thought Alex was a homeless orphan, so she took him to a children’s center for a free meal and a bath. It turned out that he was not an orphan but was one of many Roma children who beg in order to support their families.

In 2001, together with a like-minded Romanian teacher named Maria Gheorghiu, she started an innovative program for poor women and children called Gata, Dispus si Capabil (Ready, Willing and Able). “Our model has been extremely effective at getting severely disadvantaged children into school and helping them to succeed there,” said Hawke. Some 600 children and mothers, mostly of Roma descent, have benefited from Ovidiu Rom’s constellation of programs.

Funding from The Global Fund for Children enabled Ovidiu Rom to expand the program in Bacau and the town of Buhusi, serving 200 children in all. It also enabled Hawke and Gheorghiu to expand to a poor area in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, some 180 miles away. Success in Bucharest has led to an ambitious long-term initiative called Fiecare Copil in Scoala (Every Child in School).

“Our goal now is to get every single child in Romania in school by 2020,” said Hawke, “by introducing our methodology to other communities throughout Romania.”

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