Help a homeless orphan with no income to live decent and safe life. Contribute towards this program that provides shelter, food and social services.
- $135 USD can buy 3 meals per day up till he finds a job
- $55 USD can pay a rent in town for an orphan without a shelter while $16 USD can pay his utilities per month;
- $250 USD social services/month
After communism collapsed in Romania in 1989, the orphans were still forced to leave the orphanage when they turned 18, but the government no longer provided them with job assistance. As a result, the orphans often became homeless and wandered the streets without a job, a family or hope. Many were living in parks, under bridges, unfinished buildings, train stations, lives that led to stealing or prostitution.
After leaving the orphanages the orphans face diverse difficulties and go through major life risks while trying to find their place in real life. Usually they need support to reconcile with the past and the rejection from their natural families who abandoned them due to poverty and lack of education and gain skills to be able to live on their own. Our goal is to substitute as much as we can the family they do not have. We offer them a shelter and provide them with food while trying to find the appropriate job according to their qualifications and talents. Some of them receive additional vocational training or qualification through our educational program in order to be able to grow professionally. They also receive advice how to keep their job and manage well their income.
GH, one of the first two girls taken under the organization’s care, remembers, “One day I and a group of other teenagers were asked to leave the orphanage on the next day. When we left, we didn’t have anything - neither clothes nor even a mattress to sleep on. The teachers didn’t offer us any advice as to what we were supposed to do. It was very hard. I stayed on the streets for about 2 months. I started working here and there taking small jobs, but didn’t have anywhere to sleep. There was a group of us living on the streets, staying together. This continued till I met LK, an orphan like me. He told me then: “Do you know the Ciorna family? Let me bring you to Mrs. Ciorna.” When we went there I received some money and could buy some food. On the second day after talking to Adrian I got accommodated in their house. Later Mother Maria taught me how to cook. I could stay there 2 years and could find a job.”
Today, Good Samaritan continues its mission of providing disadvantaged youngsters from state and private orphanages with the skills and opportunities to socially and professionally integrate into society, while showing them Christian love, care, support and Jesus Christ’s model for living extending its experience of so far 20 years to other communities too.