The Leap of Faith to Help the Abandoned Children of Bucharest, Romania
Improving the quality of life of children living in the streets and sewers
After watching a horrific segment on the news magazine 20/20 about the damage done to Romania after the tyrannical rule of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, my life changed. For anyone who saw that segment, the disbelief at the extent of the cruelty and neglect shown there was jarring.
There I was, in a lucrative and influential job—one for which I had worked very hard in a male-dominated environment—with no outlet for my righteous indignation and no clear path as to what my next step needed to be.
Remember, this was 1989, and very little was known about countries behind the "Iron Curtain." After figuring out where Romania was on the map, I started applying for grants. I must have written hundreds of letters of interest with no success, so I volunteered with a nonprofit organization called Education for Democracy.
That opportunity took me to Slovakia, which at the time was part of the Communist Bloc. My experiences there were transformative. Here were people willing to explore the unknown for the sake of bringing the world, with all its diverse cultures, together.
I was sold.
After two stints with this group, I renewed my efforts to help the children I had seen in the 20/20 program, despite continued setbacks in securing grants. The large, well-publicized charities with which we are all familiar were not interested because they had their own well-established target populations, and abandoned children in Romania were not on anyone’s list.
I decided to go to Bucharest to see what was happening for myself.
With all the optimism of a woman on a mission, I plunged ahead with no particular plan—only a determination to kick-start my efforts. The travel agent thought I was crazy, but when she heard the story of the abandoned children, she went to work.
A month later, I was arriving at Otopeni Airport and finding my way to the Hotel Dorobanților.
I had no understanding of Romania’s currency, language, customs, or what I was going to do once I arrived. I had a list of six nonprofit organizations that purported to be working in Bucharest, so I decided to start there.
