I want to begin my letter to you by thanking for the opportunity you gave to me through your donations. You made a dream come true: I did my first theater project in Romania that focused on the children from my home country. For me, this has been a very important step. I have proved to myself that I can do this and that I can have an impact on the future of Romania. This is my way of contributing to a better tomorrow for the ones I left home, by building strong children that can wash the poverty away later.
I met with the children 3 times a week. We started with theater workshops that focused on developing their personalities and their skills. I gave a special attention to teaching them how to accept eachother, no matter the differences between them. At the beginning of our project I noticed that the children were very mean to eachother. Poverty, appearance and their different backgrounds were issues of argue all the time. They have been raised with the shame of poverty and with an intense hate towards the rroma children. It has been an intense fight at this chapter but my heart was filled with joy when, towards the end of the project, I heard them defending eachother and saying to children outside our project that we shouldn’t discriminate, no matter how different we are.
When it comes to getting their stories, I realised that I need more time when it comes to gaining their trust. The children of Romania believe that it is a shame to be poor so they weren’t very excited about telling what’s happenig in their homes.
Slowly, the stories started to arrive and I was able to write a play about these children. The performance talked about their dreams, what they want to be when they grow up and what is stopping them to fulfill their goals. It was a play about the violence they face at home and at school, about the poverty that surrounds them and about the importance they give to a family that supports them to go to school. A big problem that the children from the country side face is that their parents force them to stay at home and work the fields instead of letting them go to school. When they are allowed to go to classes, they walk by foot miles and miles to the nearest school, no matter the weather condition.
In certain moments we used puppets in the performance that helped us build a certain distance to the characters and the story that they were telling. Plus, for keeping the children safe, nobody played their own character in the play. We made it clear to the audience and their parents that these children are the voice of all children and that we are not talking on stage about their families.
With the money we succeeded to raise, we were aible to offer these kids sandwiches, juice and fruits everytime we met. We even baked cakes for them. The money helped us to offer the children presents at the end of the project, plus a pizza party to say good-bye. We payed for the transport when needed. We bought food bags for families in need around us.
We had a dentist that came and made a hygiene workshop with them, offering the kids toothbrushes and toothpaste. We bought them soaps to complete the kit.
We had 3 hair stylists that came and gave our children free haircuts. We had juice, cakes and crackers to mark that special day in their lives with a party.
All in all, without your help, this project wouldn’t have been possible the way it has been done - with professionalism, putting the children first and not leting the economical problem to stay in front of what we want to do. It has been an ideal situation where we had the power to offer the children what they needed in order to focus on the final product: the performance My Story Romania, a performance with and about the children of Romania. Thank you!
Luiza Stanescu