Becky's charity mission to Romania

Date published: 15 July 2010

Council employee Becky Watson is heading for Eastern Europe this summer to help disadvantaged children and adults.

She is part of a group of volunteers for the Wishing Well charity who are heading for Slatina, in Romania.

Wishing Well works with children and families who have limited opportunities, delivering a range of projects with an educational or health focus. It also supports children with terminal illnesses and/or disabilities.

Becky (aged 26) is an administration assistant in Bury Council’s adult care services department.

“It’s long been an ambition of mine to volunteer in orphanages in Romania,” she said. “I remember seeing Challenge Annika on TV doing their secret filming in orphanages in Bucharest in the early 90s and, despite being only very young, the image of how bad it was really stuck with me. Fortunately, with Romania now in the EU, almost all of these child institutions have now closed and many of the children are now in foster care or have been adopted.”

The group will spend ten days working with children and adults who have severe learning/physical disabilities, those with HIV/AIDS and extremely poor children from Roma families.

“Roma are the most socially disadvantaged minority group in Romania and are often prejudiced against and excluded from Romanian society, and usually do not get access to education or health care,” said Becky.

“The two projects that we will be involved with are a summer school for the Roma children and also a large state-run adult institution.”

Becky is fund-raising for the trip, and has set up a JustGiving.com account where donations are sent direct to Wishing Well, along with a Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=106744979369811&ref=ts  

http://www.justgiving.com/Becky-Watson