Don't know how many of you saw the ABC Nightline segment on Romania last Weds. It was pretty disturbing and showed the grim life of some of the handicapped here. Well, I was very fortunate to have an opportunity to see how Romania is making strides and is trying to improve things -- although you can never change things overnight.
Victor took me to see a place where he works. There are 8 homes of 10 kids that are built around a circular area (a field). In the middle the kids are able to play sports and just "hang out". The houses are VERY nice, and we were able to look around inside and see. One of the kids was all too happy to show us his room. These kids are all mildly retarded or handicapped in some way, from what I could see. I would say they were living a pretty decent life. These group homes are one of the ways that Romania is trying to meet the European Union requirement for shutting down the larger orphanages. Victor was telling me that there used to be an orphanage of 400 kids that is now closed. So this is definitely an improvement.
Good thing about the ABC segment -- Livada Orphan Care had 10,000 hits on its website two days in a row, and the following day it had 500 hits! Maybe something good will come out of the rather negative publicity. I'm sure many people wanted to find a way to help once they saw that program.
