EDUCATE disabled Romanian orphans DENIED EDUCATION

Dear Friends,

How lucky we were to spend nearly two weeks with our amazing children at Delia's Center for Special Needs Kids. At the end of September, I traveled with our CEO, Laura Larkin and new U.S. Board Member Kyle Arney to Barlad. We were fortunate to have a new volunteer join us - -our longtime supporter Luisa came for a few days to be with the kids and get to know everyone. The kids were so thrilled as Luisa speaks some Romanian!  Everyone had a wonderful time listening to her read books, playing games, and singing and dancing!    

While Laura had already been in our new location, helping the team to move in June, it was the first time for me and Kyle. How proud we were to see the friendly, welcoming environment that has been created for the children! We are also so proud of our children for attending school despite the struggles they face each day. It still always surprises us how these kids can be in regular classrooms with no suppport - no special education teacher, no support aide. Every day it is so tough for them to keep up or even sit in the class. Our team works diligently with them to provide educational support according to their needs!    The one thing that truly was heartbreaking to us was learning how so many of our kids are bullied in school by their peers - for their differences, level of poverty, lack of clothing, etc. Plus there is usually no intervention by teachers and even the teachers often don't give a break to a child who is unable to have proper school supplies. This leads us to consider what we can do and while our staff does provide emotional support, we would like to develop a support program for the children and for parents.

Below are some photos to share with you!  It is a peak into the fun we had visiting and our special kids!

As always,  please reach out with any questions; lauren@deliafoundation.org

Thank you for caring!

Best,

Lauren

Dear Friends,


We are excited to share with you that we have just moved into a new location where we will be able to serve even more children!  We moved over the past week and half!   Our CEO, Laura Larkin was in Barlad to share in the excitement. It was unexpected that we had just 60 days to find a new space and relocate as the landlord was selling our existing location. However, this is turning out to be a blessing in disguise as we have the opportunity to grow and increase the number of children.  We will be able to have a separate room now for our youngest children and we have created a family room/dining room. In this special room we will be sharing our meals together in a much larger space where there is room for everyone to be less crowded. It's also big enough with a large table for group projects. Importantly, now that we have pre-teens and teens, we wanted a quiet , comfortable area for 1:1 talks where our social worker and wellness director can meet with the children. So we added in some comfy sofas to the room! 


The need is so great here in Vaslui County, in so many ways. We now have several children traveling from villages up to an hour away to attend Delia's Center for Special Needs Kids. Thanks to your support, this is possible. The renovation of the new space was more than we expected but now we have a long-term home. We are able to take more kids off the wait list! If you would like to join us in expanding our work, please follow the links as you can continue to contribute to this project!

Below are photos of our renovation so you can see plus photos of the kids in the space last week.  We know that we are creating a wonderful space for the children to thrive.

Best,

Lauren Fishbach

Links:

• LINK to Continue Assisting our Special Needs Kids!