Appeal for the Domnesti Boys Home - Romania

AMURT Domnesti children’s home is in desperate need of regular sponsors that can make a regular monthly financial commitment, or that can send a larger yearly donation. Please consider helping us to give these boys a future that they deserve after so much hardship and suffering in their early lives.

 
Stephan and Cornel (both 22yrs old) have recently moved to our 'Integration project' of apartments owned by AMURT in Bucharest to provide them with a transitional home once they have left the boys home to help them on their way to full autonomy.

After the revolution and collapse of communism in Romania, AMURT decided to open a small family-style children's home to provide an alternative to the massive institutional state children's home. Our boys at the Domnesti Boys home are now adolescents and young adults approaching adulthood and independence.

In Romania salaries are still very low compared to the cost of living, so living in the transitional apartments, only having to pay for utilities and a small monthly maintenence fee, the boys can learn how to manage their own finances and have a positive experience of independence. Both are now employed - Stephan has a job as a waiter in an upmarket restaurant, and has a serious girlfriend who he hopes to marry in a few years, and Cornel is working in a furniture factory and is also a break-dancer.

Currently, seven of the boys are still living in the Domnesti children’s home, 2 are living in the Integration Apartment, and one is fully autonomous. Within the next 3 years, all of the boys, except those with special needs, will be leaving the home and entering either into our transitional apartments or into an autonomous situation.

These children really need your help so that we can conclude the commitment we have undertaken to help give them the best start in their adult lives that we can provide. Currently, the budget for basic operational costs is approximately 1,800 –2,000 euros per month. However, our current regular sponsors are only covering about 1000-1200 of that budget. The gap between what we receive and our expenses is partly because of increased costs, as well as inflation, which in Romania is very high, and increasing even more now that Romania has joined the EU. We also have been spending only a fraction of what should be spent on food, and in every possible way we have been trying to save money.