europe2europe.co.uk

Our Background

During the dying days of Ceauşescu’s despotic regime in Romania it became obvious that there had been state-sponsored discrimination and abuse of disabled people (including the deaf and blind), gypsies and the political opponents of the regime. These people were nicknamed the “irrecoverables"; they were carted off to nasty warehouse-style state run institutions, where care was more or less non-existent. In effect they were almost death camps!

Able-bodied orphaned girls fared somewhat better if they were willing to bear more children for the state. Ceauşescu had a plan to raise Romania’s population to 30 million by the year 2000. In order to achieve this, contraception & abortion were banned. Moreover, the state provided incentives & medals to encourage women to have as many children as possible. After the revolution in 1989 there was a very significant decline in the birth rate as contraception became available again and people were allowed to move freely around the country, and indeed to leave Romania.

The ramifications of Ceauşescu’s birth-policy is still being felt as the state’s educational and social care facilities are unable to support adequately a burgeoning cohort of children and young adults in the population. Added to this were the problems of those institutionalised groups (the “irrecoverables") who had been kept in such inhumane conditions. Many children had physical handicaps due to diseases that had been eradicated in the West like polio and leprosy, but they also had psychological problems because of the way they’d been mistreated. The collapse of communism also brought severe financial struggles to the elderly. Within weeks of the revolution elderly people could be found begging in graveyards. They were saying silently ‘feed us, or we stay here and die’.

In response to all of this, many well-meaning people and groups around the world wanted to do something to relieve this terrible suffering. One such person was Graham Giles (the founder of this charity) who had got to know Romanians well during the Communist era, as he was an active supporter of prisoners of conscience in that country, for which he was given ‘a lifetime ban’ from entering again by the former Communist regime. With the fall of communism Graham was welcomed back to Romania and quickly got involved in a number of emergency relief projects. Initially Graham supported former state institutions (mending roofs on orphanages and providing walkways between buildings as disabled children were getting frostbite crawling on their hands and knees to access different buildings), mobilising people from the UK to send clothes, food, medical supplies & toys.  He mobilised people to volunteer their skills and help in practical ways. Under the auspices of Europe to Europe Graham has set up residential refuge homes and centres for social development staffed by Romanians.  Amongst other things, he also helped set up a probation service & drug rehabilitation scheme in Romania.

Nicolae Ceauşescu the former Communist leader of Romania

[picture from the Wickimedia web site]

Graham Giles has written a number of reports and books, including a book entitled “Turbulent Transitions” that chronicles the ongoing of juvenile crime & justice from the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe

The book will soon be available to download from here in PDF format