Special Report
on the work with Victims of Domestic Violence
From
Smiles Director for the Project –
Georgi Opreanu
We are glad
to say that the work we are doing through our Emergency Housing
Unit in Mirlou continues to get support and great appreciative,
not just by the beneficiaries of the project but also by the State
Departments in Romania.
Recent months have allowed us to be a part of leading Seminars in
Romania on ‘Responding to Domestic Violence’. This is a great
honour and responsibility so we are taking the opportunities very
seriously indeed.
In June, I had the opportunity to attend, with our Social Worker
Mioara Tarau, a National Conference for Domestic Abuse Shelters in
Brasov (a beautiful city in the southern part of Romania). This
was the first conference held for NGO’s that are offering this kind of
service. Both of us found it very interesting and very useful. We met
people from 12 other shelters from all over Romania and two
representatives of the Domestic Abuse Department in Bucharest.
The objective of the Conference was to get to know the shelters from
Romania and to work together to improve both the law and services as
well as learn from each others experiences. We had seminars and
workshops on different problems that were of major interest to all
those involved in this area of social care. The workshops were about:
current legislations and how to improve the law for the best interest
of the beneficiary, ways to access EU or Romanian funds for the
shelters and ways of improving our services.
A very interesting session was sharing the experience of different
shelters. We could learn a lot from others, but I can proudly say that
others enjoyed learning from our experiences. The state
representatives were very cooperative and assured us of their support.
They encouraged us to continue the work that we have started and they
want to work together with NGO’s such as The Smiles Foundation
to improve the law and to find new opportunities to fund the shelters.
We hope we will continue to have these kind of meetings because we
found it helpful and we were encouraged to see that others have the
desire to help people that are in need.
In July, the State launched a ‘Handbook Guide’ that is designed
to help the work of the institutions working with domestic abuse
cases. The Smiles Foundation in partnership with the Labour, Family
and Social Protection Minister organised the launch. The Smiles
Foundation had special guests for Boston College in America, a
professor – Dr Betty Blyth and post-grad students - Ashley Hanneken
and Gina Richards - who are working in this area of activity. We
invited them to lead a seminar and Professor Blythe together with
Ashley and Gina shared from their experiences and expertise and gave
the Romanians examples of good practice.
All the participants were very interested to find how they can improve
their work with domestic abuse victims and they had a lot of questions
for our special quests. All the participants to the seminar agreed
that this type of seminar should be held more often because it is
meeting a real need.
The local press participated in this event which was preceded by an
official ‘Press Conference’ and they wrote a lot about the seminar and
in this way more and more people could find about the great work that
Smiles is doing in Bihor County. The press coverage was then
syndicated and we received reports of it turning up in Cluj and other
major cities.
Our Chief Executive closed the Seminar addressing the delegates and
State Representative which included the Police Dept. and Child
Protection Agency. He thanked Professor Blythe, Ashley Hanneken and
Gina Richards for their valuable contribution in the seminar and to
all those in attendance and stated The Smiles Foundation’s hope
that this was the first step of a long collaboration.
Please continue to pray for the work that we are doing through our
Emergency House facility and for the beneficiaries we serve and
support through the work.
TO HELP
THE WORK CONTINUE, PLEASE SUPPORT NOW.
|
To Support the
Emergency Housing Unit |
UK £
|
US $
|
|
|
|
|
|
Return
to the projects page
Return
to the homepage
