Irina is 14 years old. She is dying of AIDS. Many years ago she went to the hospital for a blood transfusion and was given contaminated blood. The other children in the garbage dump like her a lot, and come to her to play and for her protection. We usually saw her with a baby or small child in her arms.We met Irina and the other people living in the garbage dump at Mofleini, outside of Craiova , a large city in Southern Romania , in July 2003. We knew that there were some Roma (Gypsy) families living there, but were shocked to find 130 people (7 families) living in conditions far worse than we had imagined. After spending some time with them we decided to try to start a project to help the children, who are growing up without hope and with almost no prospects for education, work, and a better future. This website is to tell you more about these people, what we want to do, and how you can help
Living condiction
.The smell in this area is terrible as the shacks are built right on the garbage dump. When they burn the garbage the air is thick and sticky. Corpses of animals rot just meters away from the crooked houses, where the children play. When it rains, the floors of the houses become mud. The rooms are full of flies and there is no electricity or running water. Nicu and his family are well off compared to the others – the second source of water in the community is located in their cooking area – a covered area in front of their house. They have managed to save a bit of money by raising pigs on the garbage dump. The pigs stink, and are separated from the living rooms only by a wall made of dirt. Ten year old Madalina takes me to see the baby pigs – “Aren’t they beautiful?” she tells me…surrounded by filth and poverty, she still has a child’s affection for small animals. Nicu and his wife dream of building a small house. But where? Who would choose to build on a garbage dump? No one will sell them land elsewhere, and they have no way to make money but scavenging in the garbage dump 



Irina is slow to smile at us, but when she does we are struck by how pretty she is. Her hands, face and clothes are filthy as she spends most of her time scavenging through garbage to help support her single mother who also has AIDS and her siblings, one also with AIDS. She lives in a tiny shack with just three walls and a cardboard roof, along with 7 other people.Irina receives medication to keep her healthy from a charity organisation in Belgium . When the medication runs out she gets sores which won’t heal. Then she goes to the hospital in Craiova where they quickly send her away with medication which does little to help her. The last time we visited the garbage dump we brought copies of the photos we had taken. All of the others, adults and children, ran to see the photos. Irina came running to us, put her arms around me, and stayed close to us, even when we told her there were some nice picture of her.
Home
 All of them live in the garbage dump. Most of the time they work in the field, scavenging for metal or glass, breathing the toxic smoke from the burning garbage. One of the nine month old babies is already taking medication for problems with her lungs. One teenage boy was recently sent to prison for stealing a T-shirt, despite being a minor. By the time the police realized he was under-aged and released him, he had already been raped. In the summer the children wander barefoot, the young ones naked, through heaps of broken glass, metal, rotting food and other garbage, looking for ways to survive until the next day. Their parents have little to offer them – many of them have become violent or alcoholic due to a life of abject poverty. Some of the parents are little more than children themselves.Somehow, surrounded by dirt, violence, and hopelessness, these children are still children. They find interesting scraps in the garbage to play with. They smile and laugh, and run to us when we arrive to see if we brought anything for them. They look amazingly healthy and beautiful. They don’t know yet about their future. We want to give them a chance

 Casandra (in the middle) is about 3 years old, a haunting beauty with piercing dark eyes. When we took her photo her mother wanted to put shoes on her, to hide her dirty feet, covered with cuts from the garbage. About 40 other children live in the garbage dump, aged 9 months to 15 years. After that they don’t look like children any more. Two of the women are pregnant. They are accepted at the hospital to give birth, but receive no pre-natal care or education.

 Seeing these beautiful children wandering through the garbage gave a surreal sensation.  They smiled at us and quickly became attached to us. The second day we brought fruit for them. Some of the kids didn't know how to eat oranges and to peel bananas. It is hard to keep looking into their eyes. You can see nothing to tell you about the smoke coming from the garbage, the dead animals in the pool 40 meters away, about the freezing winters and their hopeless future. The local administration, the Romanians and the rich Roma do not care or do not want to know. They say there is poverty everywhere, and too many things to be done. There is poverty everywhere, but we believe the only way to help is to start somewhere, and this is where we want to start. 
Please press here to see how you can help
Casandra and her mother are in the central photo. Her mother is stunning woman, with dark hair and bright blue eyes. The others call her the crazy woman - family violence and abuse and 10 years of scavenging has taken its toll.  Most of the young men are married and have children, although they are under 20 years old. Life in the garbage dump has made them aggressive and violent. The only hope they see is to go abroad and try to find work or steal. You can see that they love their children, but still they vent their frustrations on their families. They need 500 Euros to escape Romania – that’s what you need to show at customs. In a good day scavenging through the garbage they can make 2 –3 Euros, barely enough to feed themselves and their families. They have not finished high school and they have no work skills. Women are in the worst position being discriminated by Romanians and often abused by their husbands.

The Romanians living in Mofleni, close to the dump, are sympathetic to the Gypsy families living in the dump. They too suffer from the smell of the garbage and the smoke from the burning. They say there have been no incidents of theft or other problems related to the Gypsies. In fact, there is one Romanian boy living in the dump – he is an orphan and has no where else to go. The Gypsies have adopted him.The mayor wants to demolish their houses, such as they are, and evict these families from this “prime property” owned by the city of Craiova .