Volunteering has no age, and when the beneficiaries are children from disadvantaged backgrounds, +60 is just a number, not a state of mind, as proven by eight seniors from Bistrita.
In recent years or even months, they have joined the Inocenti Foundation - Romanian Children's Relief under the 'Generations' program, to carry out after school activities with 20 children from the municipality, aged between 7 and 13 years, whose families cannot financially afford such costs.
The program, run through the Margareta of Romania Royal Foundation, started timidly almost five years ago, remaining a novelty for the Bistrita-Nasaud County.
"Since 2020, we have taken over the intergenerational approach initiated by the Margareta of Romania Royal Foundation and supported by Hochland Romania. They are the main initiators and founders of the 'Generations' center. We are proud that we are doing this, there are only 10 centers in Transylvania and 40 all over the country. It was difficult to start the program in 2020 [the year of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic - editor's note], but we took the measures provided by the law and we continued as we could during that period. (...) It was a novelty at country level and even more so at county level," says the director of the Inocenti Bistrita Foundation, Laura Filipoi.
The members of the foundation first turned to their own parents, grandparents or elderly neighbors to find volunteers, and then advertised in the press and online. They currently have eight senior volunteers and they have to turn down seniors who contact them to join the initiative because of space constraints.
Four workshops are now underway within the 'Generations' program: ecology and sustainability, traditional and modern games, remedial education and creative reading and writing. From March, road safety, entrepreneurship and first-aid workshops will be added, all with the aim of giving children the necessary skills and the opportunity to develop their emotional intelligence.
It's a win-win situation, adds Andrada Miron, because seniors also benefit from an active, rewarding retirement.
"This involvement component of senior volunteers has greatly developed the children's emotional intelligence. The relationship that has developed between volunteers and children brings benefits on both sides, so it is a win-win in this relationship, because often my colleagues and we are perceived as educators, teachers, people with authority, but when certain messages come from senior volunteers, through their life experience, the fact that they have raised children, raised grandchildren, children have a different approach. (...) They are seen as grandparents, not as an authority. Most of them don't have grandparents at home or grandparents willing to give them their time, their life stories, their life experience,", said Andrada Miron.
The program results are monitored from the beginning of each school year and along the way, by administering questionnaires to children and seniors and following the educational development of the young ones.
However, Laura Filipoi also talks about the long-term results, which will start to be visible when children reach the age of 21, when the foundations laid now will leave their mark on their adult personality.
As a matter of fact, the first signs of maturity can be seen in the children from the 7th and 8th grades who come to the foundation, who have become more independent, who need counseling more than homework help, but who do not hesitate to offer their help to the younger ones, becoming volunteers themselves. They also have as models the high schoolers who work with the Inocenti Foundation and come to help the day center's beneficiaries with homework.
For senior volunteers, the 'Generations' program means joy and soul satisfaction. The youngest member of the team, former educator Maria Jungheatu (64), saw an advertisement for the foundation in the press and simply felt she had to join the team.
The longest-time volunteers are the Negruseri couple, the parents of program manager Andrada Miron. They are visibly emotionally attached to the children who come to the foundation, whom they have even welcomed into their own home. Ana Mia, as the children call her, is 65 years old and has worked for a quarter of a century as a jeweler, so creative workshops are her specialty, where she gets her energy. Procope is 68, grew up in a family of 11 children, he is the seventh, and for 45 years worked as a locksmith, and now retired, he is the children's favorite playmate.
The most visible activity in the community is the "Olympiad of the Innocents", a project started in 2007 that brings together hundreds of children with disabilities from Bistrita-Nasaud county, who participate in sports competitions adapted to their abilities and where each participant is declared the winner. Last but not least, shortly after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the foundation has organized activities to support refugees and is currently organizing Romanian language courses for Ukrainians settled in the area.
Comentează