Couple heading to Romania to help impoverished families

Eva and Arthur Kennedy of the Kirk Road will head for the eastern European country in August and on their arrival will immediately get to work on building homes for local people.

The pair started working with Habitat for Humanity Northern Ireland five years ago and have been to Romania in the past as well as Ethiopia.

This year the charity will be sending out 30 teams - including one from the Province - in order to alleviate the hardships of others.

The Northern Ireland team consisting of 10 members of all ages and backgrounds will travel to Pitesti in Romania, a country still struggling to recover following the oppressive Ceausescu rule and a Soviet style economy previously in place there.

Both left Romania with an obsolete and inadequate industrial base which in turn left many without decent shelter.

Many people are forced to live in cold, damp and crowded housing hoping for a better life.

Makeshift stoves provide the only heating, and in some cases there is no access to drinking water.

Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit, non-denominational movement dedicated to eliminating substandard housing and homelessness worldwide and to make adequate, affordable shelter a matter of conscience and action.

Habitat is founded on the conviction that every man, woman and child should have a simple, affordable place to live in dignity and safety.

"We will be heading over with people from all over Northern Ireland including Cookstown, Antrim, Lisburn, Dromore and elsewhere," Eva told the Times.

"Whichever country we work in, the people firstly have to commit to 1,000 hours community service before building begins on their home as well as demonstrate a form of income.

"There are 2.4 million people in Romania who are living in extreme poverty.

"It is impossible for many to get their own home in Romania as a new apartment can cost in the region of 70,000 Euros while the average wage is just 300 Euros a month.

"We build the house and they pay cost price for it, Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit making organisation."

Eva and Arthur will be heading out to work alongside the Roma people for 10 days on August 6.

Each member of the group must raise 1,200 in order to take part in the Romania project.

Habitat for Humanity Romania started in 1996 and since then they have helped more than 1,000 families in need of simple, decent shelter, building new homes, renovating apartments and engaging in disaster recovery.

HFH Romania is also working with the Roma community to provide them with decent housing and integrate them into Romanian society.

Over 30 teams and 500 individuals from Northern Ireland have travelled to Romania in the past 10 years.

About 150,000 Romanian families are currently living in poverty conditions, without adequate heating, no running water, overcrowded conditions, no bathroom or simply their house is falling down around them.

Since average families cannot afford to buy new homes, many families live in their parents' houses, making overcrowding a primary issue of poor living conditions.

The average salary in Romania is about US$400 per month or $300; however the average salary outside the largest cities is roughly two thirds of that in the cities.

A housing boom has caused prices to sky-rocket for new homes.

At the current rate, a single person would have to pay his/her entire salary for 19 years to pay for a home.

However, access to credit is limited and excessive down payment restrictions keep all but the wealthy from having access to credit.

Eva said: "2010 is shaping up to be a transformative year. We are planning to help 584 families this year to live in decent, simple homes.

"There are seven full time affiliates spread throughout the country that work towards solving the long term housing needs of entire communities or regions.

"These are normal, hardworking families that due to circumstances out of their control are unable to offer themselves the chance at living in a decent, affordable home.

"HFH Romania has begun partnerships with other NGO's to provide adequate live-in care centres for persons with disabilities, providing dignity through offering healthy, progressive alternatives to the often sub-standard state run institutions.

"Those who were raised under the orphanage system under communism were marginalised by community and have often been living crammed into single room apartments once they left the state institutions. HRH Romania has been working with them in providing a place that they can now call home.

"They are living in conditions which we cannot begin to understand, but conditions which all of us have in our power to do something about, even if it is only donating some money.

"Roma (gypsy) families are often the poorest, most marginalised families in a community, constructing their shacks wherever people will tolerate them.

"HFH Romania is partnering with other NGO's providing social assistance to create a replicable, intensive intervention program."

A family Story: the Badoi Family

Marius (30) and Ionela (28) met while working in Spain picking strawberries. They moved back to Romania to get married six months later.

They knew right away that they would be married someday and have been married for five years now.

They have a two year old daughter named Larisa and one year old twin sons named Robert and Razvan.

After getting married Marius and Ionela moved in with his parents in Bucharest along with his four older brothers. It was very crowded so when Ionela got pregnant they were forced to move into a small farm-house in the village with her mum, brother and his wife. They also have two nieces aged four months. Now they share one room with their three children. Marius still works near Bucharest at a storage facility and hitch hikes every day. Ionela is a stay at home mum.

The Romanian State gives a small amount of money for two years after birth of a child so the mother can stay at home. They also have Marius' small paycheck and are able to live off a small amount of crops and milk from her brother's animals and land. When they have time, their hobby is working in the small field with their family.

Due to their small income, the Badois's are forced to live in a cramped but loving house. Ionela is able to work a lot for Habitat for Humanity site because of her mother's generosity of staying with the children.