Here's the official charity Trustees' report for the year 2006 to 2007

The trustees report is written for our auditors and goes into the accounts. This gave the most up to date information on our activities at that time.

THE RELIEF FUND FOR ROMANIA LTD
REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2007

The members of the trustees, who are the trustee directors of the Relief Fund for Romania Limited present their report and the audited financial statements for the year ended 31st March 2006 .

WHO ARE WE?

We are a British charity, based in the UK, that raises funds and spends them in Romania.

We have 2 full time charity staff and about 30 charity shop staff. At any one time, we are paying for the salaries of 30 - 40 charity workers in Romania.

All our trustees are Romanian.

We were formed by prominent Romanian exiles resident in the UK in 1989 after the collapse of the dictatorship and were instrumental in publicising the appalling plight of orphans and others in need.

We played a major part in coordinating the enormous aid response from all over the UK and transported huge quantities of emergency supplies. We helped to network many independent aid efforts. In recent years we have set up and run various long-term sustainable projects.

WHAT WE DO

We support various charity projects helping the children, the sick, the elderly and other groups in need in Romania. We do this by providing financial and material aid, promoting awareness and funding the training of suitable Romanian professionals throughout Romania.

We mainly fund those Romanian charities with whom we work closely on long-term community based projects. Occasionally we fund charity projects run by independent Romanian groups ie with whom we aren’t so closely involved. In these instances we ensure tight financial controls are in place and monitor the work with regular reports and visits.

We maintain a role of close involvement, advocacy, support and evaluation of all operations we fund. All organisations submit quarterly financial and project reports and we visit the projects in Romania annually.

REVIEW OF ACTIVITIES APRIL 2006 – MARCH 2007

During 2006/2007, we continued to develop our work with the most disadvantaged in Romania.

We continued to focus on enabling the Romanian NGO sector to develop effective programmes of social support that can be contracted by the state. In a country where few services are established and in a climate of institution closure, we see this as vitally important for Romania’s future.

On a national level, we funded various projects directly. In particular

M.S.Curie Hospital Bucharest / aka The Budimex. Our long standing association with this hospital continues. We employ a psychologist to run a play therapy and educational program with the children on the Surgical Unit / First Floor. Besides providing toys, games, stationary and books the psychologist provides counseling to the parents and children before and after surgical interventions.

In addition we also provide ad hoc funding to other parts of the hospital and help to the medical staff – notably for training costs.

We continued our informal support of the Romanian Nursing Association

We continued our support of FAST, a very worthwhile charity based in Brasov, by funding their core admin costs (ie salaries and office costs) of around £7000.

We continued the development of the Impreuna initiative: This offshoot to our long standing Impart programme, is the national Community Arts Network in Romania which exists to bring together both practitioners and beneficiaries who are involved in Community Arts for people with special needs.

The network consists of over 700 members from Romania and abroad, professionals working in various fields: educators, psychologists, carers, doctors, nurses, and teachers specializing in children with special needs.

Also in the field of special needs we continued our funding of the Mental Health charity Estuar’s “Cooking Time” project in Bucharest. Estuar is the leading mental health charity in Romania which focuses on provided sheltered housing and day care for the mentally ill.

The Cooking Time Project" at Estuar's Day Centre provides a hot meal twice a week for 45 of the centre's users with mental health problems or disabilities. The beneficiaries are closely involved in the preparation and cooking and so learn new skills and to work together in a team as well as benefiting from a nutritious and sociable occasion."

We help the adult psychiatric institution CRRN Gasteni, Bacau – and by association other units – in particular by funding the artist and musician Vali Racila to work there as the Arts and community reintegration therapist.

Vali organises arts events and in particular operates the in house broadcasting system where the several hundred residents can watch productions produced with great enthusiasm in their own TV studio. This results in a great community spirit and ensures that everyone is valued as an individual with feelings and human rights.

The “Theatre from Gasteni” also perform in other similar centres, particularly this year at (CRRPH Ungureni, 'Condorul' Bacau and CRRN Vermesti.

We funded a team from Gasteni to participate in the annual Relay Run for Disabled People. Now in its 9th year, this year the run went through parts of Sweden - Norway - Faroe Islands - Iceland – Denmark.

In addition to the above, many regional community projects were funded through our main partner organisation Fundatia de Sprijin Comunitar (Community Support Foundation), Bacau: (FSC).

We formed FSC from our existing projects and senior staff in 1997 and are proud that they have now reached their tenth year. They are now one of the leading charities in Romania.

We now only fund about 30% of their costs, the rest coming from local authority grants and their own fundraising. However our money covers their crucial “core costs” – salaries, office costs etc – which sadly most funders still do not seem to think are an essential part of running a viable organisation. So we need to keep supporting them.

This year our work together directly helped just under 12,000 people through the following programmes;

- Home Care of the Elderly sick and infirm in Romania

- Mobile Health Care to Disadvantaged Rural Areas in Romania

- Street Children’s Rescue, Refuge and Rehabilitation

- IMPART: Arts Therapy for the Disabled for children and adults in institutions and the
community

- Mobile Pharmacy to isolated rural areas

- Plus ad hoc Emergency grants and social support for the very poor

Highlights of FSC’s activities during 2007

On February 2007 FSC organized the 6th Community Awards Gala and the Volunteers Gala.

Both events had a great impact in the Bacau community attracting over 250 volunteers, parents, authorities, many local and multinational companies.

In June FSC celebrated 10 years of existence, a decade of hard work, results and continuity. FSC are one of only a small number of NGOs in Romania that were able to start large programmes that are still viable. In the past 10 years FSC have;

o Served over 25,000 people,

o Have provided jobs for 200 people, of which 10 have been working with us since the registration in 1997

o Been granted the hard earned “Public Utility Title” by the Government

o Won many national awards

o Networked and lobbied hard for the development of the NGO sector and of the legislation that governs the services

o Helped other charities in Romania to become more effective with training and support

FSC took part in the “Social Care Stock Market” a project by the American Chamber of Commerce and the Association for Community Relations with the “Summer school in rural areas” project. Our project was one of the few to be “bought” right away and entirely.

FSC were instrumental in organising the NGO fair:

This comprised 30 participating NGOs, authorities and mass-media.

FSC was the initiator and together with 4 other NGOs the organizer of the event. The aim of the event was to increase the visibility of the NGO sector in the context of a general bad attitude and partnership with the public administration.

The event was good and raised the visibility of the NGO sector in the community. Also it was a great opportunity for strengthening the partnership among the participants.

In November, at the 5th annual “People for People Gala”, organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Bucharest, FSC won the award for the best programme and public volunteering campaign in Romania for 2007.

FSC was also awarded for best project for teenagers with the “summer school in rural areas” by FONPC (Federation of NGOs working in Child Protection) in December 2007.

And boy are we proud of them ;-)

The number of beneficiaries helped by our main partner FSC in 2007

DETAILS

Mobile Health Care Programme: Podu Turcului area

Total beneficiaries in 2007 (estimated) 9000 as follows:

Medical services People for Home visits 1000

Mobile pharmacy 4000

Family planning 400

Help with hospital care 150

Social services families 80

Educational services children 400

Recipients of newspaper 8000

Health Services (mobile health services, mobile pharmacy, family planning)

OVER 2500 home visits in 62 villages

1000 direct beneficiaries of home visits

8400 prescription delivered by the mobile pharmacy in 6 communities

121.000 km on the road

36 family planning sessions

over 400 beneficiaries of family planning services

Social Services

Around 80 families assessed and helped

700 home visits

Educational Services

302 children taking part in the summer school project

229 children direct beneficiaries of the educational centres

Community Development Services

28000 newspapers distributed free to the population

Approximately 10 meetings with local leaders.

IMPART: COMBINED ART TECHNIQUES

Total number of beneficiaries: 1840

In institutions 1594

Trainees 256

Number of hours training 224

Direct work 4880

Total kilometers in the country 13065

Number of institutions helped by the project 16

CASA PISTRUIATUL: reintegration of the homeless / street children & support of the families

Total number beneficiaries 2007 118 as follows

Residential care 32

Day care 21

Families 19

Young street boys 46

VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME

Average volunteering hours 65

Total active volunteers 206

Total hours in 2007 were 117,000

Total hours of training achieved for the volunteers: 540

Total number of beneficiaries helped by the volunteers were 215 as follows

“Casa Pistruiatul” / the Home 20

Homebound elderly 30

Various centres of the Child Protection Department 125

Bacau Hospital 30

Care of Elderly Podu Turcului 10

Total 215

To See last year's report Click here