By Catherine Franks | Founder of Children's Helpers Worldwide
Everyone at Children's Helpers Worldwide (CHW) wants to thank you very much for your generous support for Ukrainian refugee families which had fled to safety in Romania. Your contributions, through our GlobalGiving page, supported the families - mostly children and their mothers - who are staying at FAST, one of our partner organisations in Romania.
FAST's usual work includes running education, housing and community projects for the disadvantaged Roma families in the area. It had also started a B&B, called "The Ziurel", as a social enterprise, to help raise funds for its charity projects, alongside the donations it receives.
As the crisis in Ukraine began, FAST registered its building as a refugee centre and offered the rooms in its B&B as accommodation for the refugee families. It also adapted some rooms in a vocational centre that it runs (in another part of the same building) and turned these into dorm rooms. FAST has now also taken over the building next door, to house more refugees. It has made adaptations to the building, to make it more accessible for refugees with disabilities.
The war has been going on much longer than people first imagined and the local authorities and food banks are now helping. In the early days of the war, before such assistance was established, CHW launched an emergency appeal. We are extremely grateful to you for responding so quickly and for helping during this time of great need.
FAST has now helped around 150 refugees. As there are so many children staying at the centres, FAST built a small playground for them. They have also started a kindergarten for the younger children. The older children have been able to use computers at FAST to attend school online.
As the refugee families are in vulnerable positions, we have not been sharing photos from the centre publicly. However, FAST has given permission for two videos to be shared. One video shows the preparation of the centre, as the first families arrived. The other video gives an update a few months later, and you can hear from some of the people staying at FAST's Ziurel Centre.
You can watch the first video here and the second video here.
Thank you so very much for helping the children and their families during these challenging times.
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