EU TO FOLLOW ORPHANAGE AID WITH INITIATIVE TO BUILD NATIONAL POLICY FOR ROMANIAN CHILDREN

ec.europa.eu
31 May 1994

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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