History
Romania is a country in the Eastern part of Europe with traditions dating back 2000 years. During this time Romania passed through many trials and tribulations, the most recent of these being a communist dictatorship.
The oppression of this regime caused the people to rise up in revolution on December 17th 1989 in the city of Timisoara. Many lives were lost but the dictator was overthrown and the people were free at last.
The plight of the street children was, and is, one of the consequences of communism - the fruit of a bad tree. Since the revolution, the number of children on the streets between the ages of 8 and 20 has increased especially in larger cities where they tend to migrate. Most have left behind poverty-stricken, violent and abusive familes, others have run away from orphanages.
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Ionel was one of these children of the streets who was abandoned by his parents at a young age in an orphanage. Beatings by older children and a lack of personal affection caused him to run away from this orphanage to the streets. On the streets he made friends quickly with other children like himself, he slept with them in unused houses, under trees or on the streets themselves. In the snowy winters they would move to train station waiting rooms or undergound channels piping warm water around the city. The pain of life on the streets drove him and his friends to drink, take drugs and do whatever else they could to survive. During this time, he fell in love with a street girl named Mariana. One day, after discovering that his girlfriend had betrayed him with another, he overdosed on drugs and jumped into a nearby river. His friends tried to save him, but it was too late. Ionel is no more but there are many more like him. |