About the “Fountain of Hope” After School Center from Panatau
Sixteen years ago, AMURTEL Romania opened the Fountain of Hope After School Center in Panatau, Buzau county. During that time, more than 100 children received hot, nutritious meals, homework support, and many, many creative, innovative activities full of joy and learning.
The last meal at the “Fountain of Hope” After School Center
On 15th of September, the center served its final meal, as 50 children, parents, teachers, partners, volunteers, current and ex-team members and sponsors gathered to celebrate the achievements they had realized together: summer children’s festivals with self-organized movie nights and safe dance parties, learning about ecological permaculture principles with Scottish children, “I want to be active” bicycle races, multicultural projects with European volunteers, annual volunteer initiatives for the National Week of Volunteering, local volunteer projects involving children in bringing hot meals to the elderly or cleaning up the river and much more.
Then, in the following days, Didi Deshaies, the president of AMURTEL also hosted a similar online gathering for the supporters around the world that had been sending regular support to keep food on the table over so many years.
Here is the video presentation, showing an overview of the wide variety of activities in the past 16 years:
The project’s impact and final thoughts
Lucian Caciamac from Center for Training and Evaluation in Social Assistance (CFCECAS), who offered professional supervision in social work to the AMURTEL team, said: “I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that, in a small town, across the Buzau river, a handful of hearty people were trying to provide good educational services, a tasty hot meal and many interesting activities for children.”
It was a bittersweet moment, as everyone joined together to say goodbye to this oasis of happiness for children. The children played outdoor cooperative games and received T-shirts and brand new backpacks filled with school supplies, sponsored by Pepcolandia. Didi asked “What did you like most at the center?” – “Football”, “I’m like in a family here”, “Painting”.
Parents expressed sadness, saying how their children really loved to come to the center, and will miss Cristina’s cooking too. Some parents are illiterate, and find themselves unable to help their children with homework, even if they wish for their children to succeed and have more chances than they had. Others live on the social allowance and struggle to have enough food on the table, so the center was a real help.
Afterschool centers like the Fountain of Hope play an important role in the prevention of more serious social problems such as early school dropout or the development of severe situations where Child Protection authorities need to separate children from their families. Ensuring both nutrition as well as stimulating and supporting children to succeed in school are key factors that prevent separation, as these are some of the rights of the child which happens if children are malnourished and not going to school.
In 2007, when the Cooperating Netherlands Foundation gave a grant of 30,000 to renovate a dilapidated community building that would become the “Fountain of Hope”, it gave similar grants to many other centers in the county. However, almost all of those centers had already closed within two years after the external funding ended. It was thanks to the resiliency that AMURTEL was able to offer, by attracting many supporters both on the local and international level, that the center was able to survive so long.
However, the local administration of Panatau has secured a grant in order to be able to construct a new building, and needs to demolish the current one, leaving the center without a place to function in the meantime.
In the past week, the Center’s psychologist prepared the children, who couldn’t understand why they cannot come anymore, telling them that in the future there will be an even more beautiful place where they will come to play and learn. As Didi said, “It isn’t the building that makes a project, it is the people, their enthusiasm, the imagination and love they put into it.”
Larisa said “I got emotional, this center was made to hear children’s screams and smiles and laughs. I hope it didn’t bother you that small children cry, because big children cry too.”
One member of the team, Ionut, was particularly sad. He is an adult with intellectual disabilities that grew up in the AMURTEL Family home, and lives nearby in a property belonging to the Association. Coming to sweep and buy bread, and help out in the center gave meaning to his life. Mirela, the director of the residential center, shared how he came to her office the day before and started to sob. She said, “Ionut, what happened?”. “I’m sorry that the center won’t work anymore and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Thoughts for the future
In the meantime, AMURTEL will continue to provide food support to some of the most vulnerable families, with vegetables from its own organic farm and by sharing donations it receives from the Food Bank for its “Familia AMURTEL” Residential Center in the same community. AMURTEL is already involved in creating educational projects about regenerative agriculture at its “Gradina Bio AMURTEL” Organic farm, and will continue to look for ways to serve the local community.
As Didi says “Everything has a beginning and an end!” She said smiling jokingly and pointing at the signs of leaking from the roof, “It can be seen that the center needs a “reincarnation”, but what matters is the soul because not only the structure creates the project. The association has always encouraged involvement and volunteering, so we hope that people from the community will continue to be involved. We, in the Association, promote volunteering, we want to help people to make a community as they want and fulfill their dreams.”
Lucian Caciamac said “Now that the center is closing down, I express my confidence that the experience of the people who worked with the children will be used in your community in future projects.”
And when a teacher from the school asked about future plans, Larisa said: “Together on the same path”.
