EU TO FOLLOW ORPHANAGE AID WITH INITIATIVE TO BUILD NATIONAL POLICY FOR ROMANIAN CHILDREN
Press release 31 May 1994
EU TO FOLLOW ORPHANAGE AID WITH INITIATIVE TO BUILD NATIONAL POLICY FOR ROMANIAN CHILDREN
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IP/94/458
After nearly 4 years of emergency and medium-term aid to alleviate
the suffering of orphans in Romania, the European Commission is
launching a comprehensive programme to help the government of
Romania develop a national policy for the protection of children.
The aim of the programme, for which contracts are shortly to be
awarded, is to improve laws and policies on child protection,
improve childcare training, reduce the placing of children in
institutions unless absolutely necessary, improve the living
conditions within these institutions and ensure that childcare
planning is run on a national rather than piecemeal basis.
Sir Leon Brittan, European Commissioner responsible for aid to
Eastern Europe, welcomed the initiative, saying:
"The Commission responded to the harrowing tragedy of Romania's
abandoned children by supplying emergency aid on a major scale.
Today those children's needs are evolving: Romania now needs a solid
framework to provide long-term solutions for the future, and the
Commission is actively supporting the Romanian government in that
goal. The immediate crisis has passed. The task now is to make sure
the improvements are permanent."
The Commission is also publishing a booklet giving details of the
European Union's emergency programme to help the suffering children
of Romania, timed to coincide with this initiative.
Europe's reponse to the crisis
The relief felt in the West at the fall of Ceaucescu turned to
dismay as the media revealed the terrible results of his policy to
increase the population. Few can forget the images of neglected
children discovered in insanitary and under-resourced institutions.
Acting on an initiative from the European Parliament, the
European Commission took immediate steps to help. Between October
1990 and June 1994, the Commission has channelled a total of 60
million ECU towards improving the living and educational standards
of Romania's abandoned and institionalised children. The aid is
being spent through PHARE, the EU's programme to help restructure
the economies of Central and Eastern Europe.
Matching aid to need
PHARE is primarily an economic programme, but it is flexible enough
to respond immediately to urgent needs in other areas. In
Romania it has moved on from delivering initial emergency aid to
a new concentration on longer-term technical assistance to give
Romanians the skills and knowledge they need to protect and
support their children.
Emergency help
The first priority was to make sure that the children would survive
the winter. So PHARE provided emergency food and heating to the
most desperate institutions. The task was complicated by the
fact that even the Romanian government did not have figures on
the number of institutions in the country - they estimated only
350, but the final tally reached 650.
For example, PHARE money financed the installation of back-up
heating in 420 orphanages and the complete renovation of 137
centres, as well as the supply of 1,650 tonnes of babymilk to
children under 1 year old. Heating oil and electricity has been
supplied for about 300 centres every winter since the crisis came to
light in 1990.
Medium Term Assistance
PHARE continued to fund heating and renovation work, but its focus
gradually shifted to the longer term needs of the children. Under
Ceaucescu they had been deprived of the most basic emotional and
material needs. To develop their full potential, they needed
trained staff and improved physical conditions.
So the next stage of the programme supported pilot projects run by
NGOs in specific aspects of staff training and organisation
management. One priority of the NGOs was to begin working on
alternative forms of support in order to avoid children being placed
in institutions unnecessarily. This includes strengthening family
ties by improving maternity care, developing daycare services,
providing more support for mothers in difficulty and encouraging
breast-feeding. At the same time, national level projects were set
up to identify the needs of the children and to draw uptraining
programmes for their carers.
The future
The Romanian government and the European Commission have now
agreed to establish and implement a global policy for the protection
of children. The Commission has put this work out to tender and
the contracts will be awarded any day now. The programme
concentrates on five main areas:-
1. Establishment of a comprehensive political, legal and
administrative framework for the protection of
children.
2. Setting up national training policies for certain
categories of personnel involved in child care.
3. Measures and alternatives to reduce the placement of
children in institutions.
4. Review of the current network of institutions and the extent
to which it meets children's needs.
5. Further measures to improve the material conditions of the
children in the institutions.
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