About Archway Romania - Support abandoned Romanian children

I believe that sometimes things are meant to happen and if you keep looking for the signs, they’ll point you in the right direction. Back in the very early 1990s, I had had an argument with my boyfriend and was sitting home on a Friday night watching television. I came across 20/20 do you remember that program? Barbara Walters was crying as she introduced a segment on the horrible living conditions of abandoned children in Romania after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overthrow of Communism. Huge buildings had been erected in Romania to contain children that no one had the money to take care of and no one claimed. The circumstances in which these children were kept were beyond imagining except in a nightmare. Barbara was crying, I was crying and I decided right then and there that the whole situation was against the Laws of God and should have been against the laws of man. That program was a turning point in my life and I am blessed to have seen it and to have found the children for whom we now work.

A group of people standing in front of a wall.

I started going to Romania, equipped with my newly earned MSW, in the mid 1990s out of sheer frustration at the lack of information on Ceausescu’s state institutions and the indifference of large international charities to the plight of these children. One has to remember back then that there were two attitudes that needed to be changed: first was that Mother Russia would take care of all its citizens and second that these children were not citizens because of their lack of Identity Papers. During my early trips, I never found or got into any of the institutions I was searching for but I kept tripping over children and young mothers sitting on the street curbs and stairs going into the subways or staring out of abandoned buildings.

Two people sitting on a couch with one holding a cell phone.

We created this web site to tell the world about the children and to ask for help from people like you who may not know about them or our efforts on their behalf. We started sending out little printed newsletters early on just to keep people informed about our efforts and to make them aware of these children. Suddenly, through a lucky series of publicity opportunities, people began to hear about our work – and the response was amazing! I was in Romania so that we could set up a mobile soup kitchen program only to find out that, due to our growing notoriety, people from all over the United States, Western Europe and Canada had started sending checks and the small pool of people to whom we sent our newsletters had grown to 3,200 people! We have relied heavily on the donations we have received over the years as well as a few grants for various projects. With the expansion of our programs, however, we need more help in the form of funding and suggestions. That is the purpose of this web site to reach more people so that they can become involved with our work and we can continue to grow.

A man handing something to another person in the back of a car.

We’ve also been in search of organizations with which to partner for the sake of improving and expanding our existing programs. A collaboration with a large international charity would help the world learn about these children and get them the help that we, as yet, can’t provide. A partnership for the sake of one (or all) of our existing programs would allow us to concentrate on other needs that are essential and to reach more children.

Our staff has changed over the years it has grown and shrunk depending on the programs being run or the funding received. Volunteers have come and gone but always with an expressed desire to come back. Our staff has become a team which you will find showcased in the next page under Our Team.

A woman handing something to a child in her arms.

We are tightly knit and in sync in our efforts and we trust and rely on each other for input, decision-making, and support. When we have major projects that need more hands. Gica, the director, hires street people whom we trust. As implausible as it may seem that people from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean with no common language can find each other for the express purpose of working together for such a cause, it works we work and we’ve got the track record to prove it.

A group of people standing next to each other.

ARCHWAY ROMANIA is a foundation that works in the streets with the children we’ve described. We go to them with food, blankets and clothing and they come to us when they need medical attention or when they’re in trouble. We know that there are other international agencies that maintain a presence in Romania but we need to tap into them so that we can establish a collaborative effort to help the abandoned children.

A collage of people in the back of a vehicle.

And finally, stay tuned and tell others about our children. Once the world knows about them they will no longer have to hide in the shadows. They’ll be able to step out into the light.

If you want to get involved in the mission of helping needy children, you can make donations via PayPal, Bank Transfer (payment order from your bank to First Bank, Archway account) and Post Office box, and you can visit us on:

-Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087582820414

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ArchwayRomania

-TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@archwayromania?lang=en

Post Office Box:

Archway

P.O. Box 73

46 Water Street

Guilford, CT 06437

(if you can’t donate via PayPal or bank transfer, you can send checks to the Archway P.O. Box address)

ARCHWAY ROMANIA FOUNDATION

FIRST BANK ROMANIA BIC CODE: PIRBROBU

Account: RO14 PIRB 4237 7470 5700 2000 ; Currency: USD

(payment order from your bank to First Bank Romania, Archway Romania Foundation account)

Peace,

Sue

Copyright © Archway Romania Foundation, All rights reserved

Donate Save a Child

61% funded

With the funds raised, Archway Romania will have resources to help children, especially those from vulnerable families, benefit from integrated community services: benefit from the treatments they need, grow up with their families, grow harmoniously without violence and enjoy childhood. According to Eurostat data in 2013, more than 40% of Romania’s population, or more than 49% of the Romanian children’s population, were at risk of living in poverty. Approximately 300,000 children in Romania are outside the education system, over 60,000 children are separated from their families, and about 10% of pregnancies are recorded in adolescents. The reasons are complex, interdependent and continue to be passed on from one generation to the next. Low access to health, social and education services, plus limited knowledge of rights and opportunities, lead to social exclusion of vulnerable families and their children. The economic crisis has affected vulnerable families through job losses and reduced incomes from work in the country or abroad. The crisis has also affected the capacity of social protection, health and education systems to meet the multiple needs of vulnerable children and families. The most vulnerable children are those in poor families, Roma communities, and children with disabilities.

General Fund

ARCHWAY Romania needs donations to keep our organization viable and to help these abandoned children of Romania, Rest in peace, Radu.

Every day, children of every age become orphaned or abandoned due to violence, natural disasters, poverty or disease. Without the support of a family, the outlook for these children is bleak.

Your gift to Archway Romania today provides children with:

Warm clean clothes;
Healthy meals and medical care
Identity Papers
Preschool, primary and secondary education counseling and training
School supplies
Emergency relief help in crisis situations

Established in 1999, Archway Romania is the one of the largest organization based in Bucharest devoted to the care of orphaned and abandoned children living on the streets of Bucharest.

Donate Help a Child to Go to School

31% funded

Archway Romania foundation provides the necessary material and financial support for the education of the children who come from poor families, disadvantaged families, foster care , with disabilities and difficult health problems who need a warm meal, a sandwich, an education and a help for their integration in school system.

In Romania, 1 in 5 children are facing major deficiencies, the parents of these children have lost their jobs( most of the time temporary or seasonal jobs), and who ended up in the situation of not having food, hygiene products, medicine, basic foodstuffs to survive, lack of a home and the discrimination due to poverty.

The pandemic has deeply affected the education and has worsened the existing social inequalities.

Any of your contribution will be invested for the benefit of street children, to prevent school leaving, discrimination and juvenile delinquency, together with you we can give necessary equipment to be able to carry out their online classes( tablets, internet access), educational materials( backpacks, notebooks, pens, markers, crayons, geometric kits, pencil cases , etc), clothes and shoes, food and personal hygiene products to help them not to drop out of school because of poverty and poor living conditions.

Thanks for your interest in this critical step forward for our kids.

Please Help Us to Replace the Old and Broken Car

15% funded

Please help us raise urgently the amount of 20.000$ in order to buy a new car to continue helping street children and disadvantaged families that we help together for 23 years .

Our car is old, it was manufactured in 2006.We fixed several defects that the car developed over time, and recently in order to be able to help children from the street, we had to repair the water pump for cooling the engine and the oil leaks that the car has, shortly after that we had to change the clutch kit with the pressure plate.

Another more expensive repair was the removal of the rust that appeared aggressively in the car body because the car is 16 years old since it was manufactured and we had to repair it in order to get a license from the Romanian Auto Registry to be able to continue to drive it safely on the streets.

Now we have very serious problems with the engine, the car starts very hard and it is possible that the car will stop working and we won’t be able to help street children, we will have to raise money together so we can buy a new car because it would be very expensive to repair the engine.

Please help us raise urgently the amount of 20.000$ in order to buy a new car to continue helping street children and disadvantaged families that we help together for 23 years .

It is necessary to buy another car to ensure the transport of food, clothing, thick blankets and medicine to poor and needy children who live on the streets, to be able to drive in all sectors of Bucharest where street children live in abandoned buildings, heating sewers or shacks made of cardboard or plastic material.

We can make this mission possible if we join forces to raise the necessary money to replace the old car in order to continue helping poor and needy children and to be able to ensure that they live in a cleaner and more decent life.

Together with you we can make this mission possible, to continue our tradition of 23 years and to help further poor children living on the street. God bless us all to overcome this problem too and to continue this mission together with you. Thank you very, very much for your help!!!