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The Tileagd Roma
(Gypsy) Community
A Smiles Foundation Project
in Romania
From a 'chance' encounter with a
young boy begging on the streets of Oradea (Romania) in 2001 has come
the life-changing opportunity for an entire Roma (Gypsy) Community
through support firstly in essential humanitarian aid and then with a
strategy for infrastructure development through education and
employment.
The encounter in April ’01 was during an annual visit to Romania by the
Foundation’s Founder and Chief Executive – Kevin Hoy – when accompanied
by eleven others on a short visit, met a 10 year old boy, hungry and
dirty from begging all day in the city.
 On
route to dinner at a local restaurant, Kevin and the team invited hungry
Victor to join them. Over dinner, the team learnt of some of Victor’s
family history and Smiles wanted to meet them all, living in extreme
poverty in a village with make-shift housing, no running water or
sanitation, in a place called Tileagd – 20 km from the city of Oradea.
At the time, the Community
comprised around 250 people including many children, represented by
about 40 families spanning four generations.
 The Smiles Foundation
was starting at that time a Family Care Project to assist largely Romanian and Hungarian families living in
extreme poverty with provision of food, clothes, medicine and social
support. After meeting the Tileagd Roma community, the project was
expanded to include every person in the Gypsy Community.
 After
12 months of support, Smiles began to establish with the leadership of
the community some hopes, dreams and expectations for the future. This
community hadn’t been able to ‘dream’ – life was all about survival –
but maybe now there was someone who could provide some hope for the community
and give them something to ‘dream’ about. But what would be their Dream?
 To
the pleasant surprise of the Smiles leadership, despite obvious needs in
personal and family areas such as homes, health and food – when the
Community was asked how the Foundation could help them most, the
response was ‘Educate our Children’ – this will provide a real
opportunity to ‘Dream’ for the future.
This was so interesting. It’s doubtful the Roma community had
ever heard of the great Chinese philosopher – Confucius, but he said;
"If
your plan is for a year, plant rice.
If your plan is for a decade, plant trees.
If your plan is for a lifetime, educate children."
This was what The
Smiles Foundation was being asked to do – Plan for a Lifetime.
 In
2002, the plan began. Initially to build a small school to establish the
educational format for a community who had never encountered the
facilities or disciplines of a School before. All planning was done in
close consultation with the leadership of the community and the
Education Inspectorate of the Romanian authorities.
The first Tileagd Community School opened in September 2003 on the site
of a former Pentecostal church. A major renovation and redesign was
undertaken to convert the Church to a school plus some extensions to
include a Kitchen, Dining Room, Shower Block and Toilets. In 2004, a
similar exercise was undertaken for converting the former Communist
office buildings for Tileagd into a Children’s Centre for Nursery
provision. By September 2004, Smiles were providing child care for 2-6
year olds in Nursery/Kindergarten and Grade School for 7-16 year olds at
the Tileagd Community School.
 In
the beginning the children had no experience of school. Many did not
know what a line was, they didn’t know their colours, the days of the
week or the months of the year and they clearly did not know how to use
the toilet or shower facilities. Many had never held a pencil or seen a
book and the first registration had to done by handprints.
It was a great opportunity and a huge
challenge. To their great credit, the children desperately wanted to
learn and their teachers wanted to teach them. Standards of achievement
have been amazing in reading, writing, mathematics, art, dance and
personal/social development – in fact, right across the curriculum. At
the start of the 2006/7 academic year the first 4 pupils ‘graduated’ to
High School to continue the secondary phase of their education.
In September 2007, more than fifteen youngsters plan to start 5th
grade whilst our Grades 1-IV plus kindergarten, all now based at the new
complex facility will increase to 105. Total number of children provided
daily care and education by Smiles in Tileagd will be more than 140 with
30 full-time staff including teachers, administrators, cooks, cleaners,
maintenance and security staff at our Tileagd facilities alone.
 Children
who had no dreams can now dare to dream and their parents can be proud
of all their children are achieving.
To assist the families encouraging their children to attend school,
Smiles assisted them in many ways. Most significant was up to 15 of the
adult community being employed. A variety of jobs requiring less
academic knowledge, but working in the School kitchen, cleaning and
construction, showed the Roma community were not only prepared to work,
but could be very hard working and conscientious about doing a good job.
 The
Foundation also helped with House repairs and in some cases extensions
to assist with larger families having better living conditions. Since
2005, the Foundation has employed a Doctor and Social Worker
specifically for the community’s needs and both have significant tasks
caring for now nearly 300 people in the community, including up to 200
children.
When UK Missionary, Margaret Biddulph joined the team, some of
the adults first learnt to read and write. Now they are involved in a
major ‘Crafts’ project – making some beautiful items that are sold
across the world to raise funds to help support the families with a more
regular income.
 The Foundation believes that every person has a part of their
life that only God can fill. A spiritual need that pastoral support can
help meet and the opportunity to Worship and Fellowship together has
increased the community concern and awareness of their neighbours and
personal responsibilities.
 In
Summer 2006 within the walls of a building ‘under construction’ the
Tileagd Community Church starting meeting. At first, every two weeks on
a Sunday morning would often see 100 people gather together for worship.
By January 2007, the community had asked if the Church could meet every
week. And so it does, joined regularly by hundreds of visitors on Smiles
Mission Trips through-out the year.
 The
Foundation is constantly looking for the next area to help with and
recent health problems with other 100 children suffering stomach worms,
identified infected water from old, damaged wells were the cause. Smiles
set about raising funds to drill a new well, to provide clean – fresh
water on stand-pipes around the village. We have also improved drainage
in the village to prevent serious flooding as happened early one morning
after heavy rain fall.
Our plan after drainage and clean water is to build a shower
block for cleaner, healthier families and then a toilet block for the
community to have for the first time - Proper drainage, Clean Water and
Adequate Sanitation.
That ‘chance’
encounter in 2001 has lead to some mighty
changes in Tileagd which by focusing on Medical, Education,
Social and Spiritual development – is changing the future of an entire
community for the good.
Creating Hope …
Making Dreams
come true!
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