Cluj Napoca, Romania
1,000+
£Ongoing
These are shower blocks that are built in the communities of very poor families in order for them to be able to wash themselves and their clothes and to help minimise illness and infections.
Can you imagine not being able to take a shower and struggling to keep you and your family clean? Not being able to have the resources of running water, going to a well and dragging heavy buckets of water back to you home? On top of this, illnesses due to poor hygiene become rife and sickness takes hold.
Link to Hope through the generous help of our supporters have managed to set up two shower blocks in very poor village in Romania and we are now onto our third one. In this particular village we visited there was no resources for a shower block at all. However one of the men from the village had dug a hole from the road up to the houses with a pick axe in the belief that one day, somehow, there would have one. We visited this village and were so impressed that we sent the funds out needed to build the shower block.
The village have a well nearby that they draw water from and the local council have been so impressed with the project that they have agreed to supply them electricity from the main grid, so there are no running costs for the village.
Latest update – September 2024
‘The hot summer days are rarer and as August spends its last days and September waits to settle more and more comfortably, the sun shines less and less and nature helps us to understand that autumn is around. Everything is dry around us due to the lack of rain and the terrible heat during the summer. People, children, nature, animals, all cry out and pray to God for the little rain that hasn’t fallen for months. Everything is dry around, the wells are empty, the canals and ponds have long dried up, people are desperate for some coolness and for rain and water..
Dozens of barefoot, scantily clad children gather under an older tree, trying to find something to play with, and they say that they heard that the holidays are over and they keep being told that school is starting. Some say that there is nothing true, others say that it is true that they saw children passing through the city and on the main street with their parents with new backpacks and new clothes that they heard them talking about school and that’s it, September is coming again.
Others cry and are sad that they don’t have anything prepared for school because their parents are having a hard time and they don’t have food, they don’t have shoes, they don’t have clothes, they don’t have supplies, school bags, they don’t have anything prepared and they don’t have anywhere to go to make ends meet. A few older children, who in the past years have benefited from support and help from our foundation ask if they haven’t heard anything, wouldn’t there be help from the Paty and Mr. Cornel foundation, something to help them with school? The sad answer is that this year we can’t offer anything for them, for the school either, no supplies, no school bags, no clothes and shoes, resources are very very limited and we have no way.
But, thank God that at least we can help them to be clean and stop walking around full of lice and unwashed among other children. Praise God!
Thank you Link to Hope for your support and for standing with us and these neglected and marginalized people, children and families. They can’t do anything without your support and donations, but with you by their side their life is a little better and more beautiful. May God bless you and reward your love and sacrifice.’
The wood truck has arrived at their camp and begins the unloading process and arranging the wood. Thank you very much, dear friends!! Many people gather and many help to unload.
Somewhere from behind a corner of the hut among the other participants in unloading wood two or three more shy and withdrawn children appear, they have recently arrived in their camp but they heard that they can wash and take a hot shower if they follow the rules and help with wood. They approach shyly and ask me if they can also unload that they will go to school and at home they don’t have a bathroom or water, they don’t know what it’s like to shower but the other children told them that it’s good and that they will have clean hair and they will go home and to school clean and sanitized.
Sabinut is 7 years old and has never taken a hot shower before, but now he unloads wood and logs so that he can take a shower on Sunday night as school starts on Monday and he wants to be clean on the first day of school among the other children. Dinu is his cousin, he is also 6 years old and they both carry wood and work with energy because they know that for this they will be able to take a hot shower. Cristi is just 4 years old and he helps too. It’s hard work, the wood is long and heavy but they are determined to put in all the effort and get involved to the point of exhaustion just so they can take a hot shower.
Update November 2023
The shower block is an enormous help to the village with 10 to 15 families visiting the facilities each day. There are a set of rules that each family have to follow, including the time they are allowed inside and the expected conditions of hygiene they have to leave behind them. Each family contributes and makes an effort to keep the facilities running and this is much appreciated by the community.
Next Steps
Within the near future the water boiler will need to be replaced. Work has to be done to repair it and keep it running but the boiler is now leaking. The cost to replace this, with the parts and labour will be around £500.
They also need to buy wood to use to heat the water which will cost around £680. Once purchased, the volunteers will split the wood and store it, covered up, so it will remain dry to use during the winter months.