OUR HISTORY

HOW DID THE CHARITY FIRST COME ABOUT?

Pete Brady- “I first became aware of what was happening in Romania in 1991, after the fall of the dictator Caucesceau in 1989. The BBC were the first media group to enter the institutions for children and adults with learning disabilities, and they brought to light a harsh reality which shocked the world. The scenes demonstrated in the documentary were reminiscent of such films shown during the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of World War Two. I could not believe the conditions I was seeing in 1990’s Europe. I was already working in a care home for adults with learning disabilities, so the contrast was stark- I very quickly decided that I needed to volunteer in some way. I contacted MENCAP and soon after enrolled with a group based in Cornwall. Two months later, I was working for a month as a volunteer at Brâncovenești Castle in Transylvania. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was to see and I think the memories of that time will stay with me forever. Unfortunately, we spent a lot of our time undertaking assessments of children, which would determine if they had learning disabilities or not, and that information was then put into a filing cabinet.

On returning home, I decided that the help for these institutions really needed to be practical help, so in the following year we undertook intense fundraising, which financed a mini-bus which we filled and drove over to Brâncovenești Castle to donate. The following year we set up dental care for The Castle and for a couple of years we employed a staff member in a small group home, whose job it was to take toddlers out of their cots and to play with them, in order to reduce the effects of institutionalisation.

In 1999, I decided that we needed to be registered as a charity, in order to make us a legitimate organisation, and thus greatly assist us in the fundraising process.