On May 5th 2007 members of the Fundatia Daniel Murariu organized a trip to the Sculeni Medical-Social Community in Iasi County with twenty schoolchildren from the Prisacani School of Arts and Crafts, Iasi County. The children did a wonderful job of singing songs and reciting poems for the residents, followed afterwards by distributing individual care packages of fruit and goods for communal use. Following our return to Iasi, the schoolchildren were repaid with a visit to the Art and Culture Museum.
For pictures from this campaign please click HERE.
The campaign was successful on many levels. Most importantly, the schoolchildren saw firsthand not only the sad conditions that the patients lived in, but also the joy they were able to bring by their small but deeply meaningful gesture. Our hope is that we help to plant in them the desire to reach out to the needy, to be next to those who have no one, to become citizens of a society which they help to make brighter and better. We need this in Romania and in the whole world!
The schoolchildren themselves were sensitized by their teacher, Mrs. Georgiana Nita, to the to the living conditions were likely to find at the Sculeni Medical-Social Community and gathered food products such as eggs, milk, flour, beans, etc. from parents, friends and relatives to donate. It was touching for the Asocitia Daniel Murariu members to see the involvement of the children.
The residents of the unit were visibly touched by the visit, and we were witnesses to both tears and smiles to the songs and poems, as well as the small care packages distributed by the schoolchildren. Unfortunately, due to space constraints and the fact that many of the residents were bedridden, some of the residents were forced to hear the festivities from their rooms. We were, of course, happy to be able to make a tangible difference in the living conditions by donating the ten new sinks and bedsheets.
At the end of the program and after the donations were deposited and papers finalized, the director of the Sculeni Community, Dr. Ioan Munteanu, gave us a more in-depth tour of the facilities, as well as showed us pictures of improvements they have made either by themselves or with the help of donations since he took over a year ago.
After the program at the Sculeni Medical-Social Community we returned to Iasi to the Palace of Culture where the Asocitia Daniel Murariu surprised the children and arranged a visit to the Art Museum on behalf of the Asociation.
In the afternoon, our team, together with the teachers Lyndsey Marcu and Karine Renaudin from the British School of Bucharest, went to Prisacani for a tour of the village and the school. The two teachers signed a partnership with the principal Mrs. Mariana Catrina, then presented a partnership certificate and discussed ways in which the schools could work together to provide beneficial exchange experiences for the students, including working on common projects.
The Fundatia members George Prisacaru, Amaris Koga and Daniel Murariu met with the two girls, Paula Axinte and Ana-Maria Vasiliu, for whom we will be providing scholarships beginning next academic year to attend high school in Iasi. Our scholarships include housing, food and school supplies, as these expenses are virtually impossible to support by families from the countryside. As there is no high school in the village, many children are thus forced to end their education to ten grades. We are pleased to be able to provide a bit of help to these talented and bright students!
For this campaign funds totaling approximately 1550 RON were spent on 10 sinks and associated accessories, 10 bedsheets, fruits (bananas, oranges and kiwis), renting a small bus to transport the children from Prisacani to Sculeni and back (approximately 100 kilometers/65 miles) and tickets to the Art Museum, and were provided in part by donations by Cristian Mititelu and Adina Chirita, M. D., Ph. D.
