FSC's Latest Quarterly Report
TO: RELIEF FUND FOR ROMANIA
BOARD REPORT
On the activity of Fundatia de Sprijin Comunitar April –June
2007
25.06.2007
ECONOMIC ASPECTS IN ROMANIA
The thermometers registered as many as 54.5 degrees C in the sun
in University Square, downtown Bucharest. In the South of the country,
the temperatures did not fall in certain places below 40 degrees
C. The heat killed around 30 persons.
The wells in many villages dried out and the vegetation died making
the population desperate. People started to sell they animals cheaply
as there is no food for them.
The authorities started to collect water and to supply it to affected
areas.
On the political arena the period was marked by the national referendum
for presidential re-election. Several parties initiated the process
of dismissal of the President who was suspended for a period. The
results of the referendum reinstalled him with a very clear result
of 80% votes for PRO President. However the political situation
is very agitated and affected by many conflicts and declarations.
PSD party (now in opposition) is, in a way, the winner of the whole
disturbance and Mr.Geoana is accumulating more sympathy.
GENERAL OVERVIEW ON FSC ACTIVITY AND
ITS ROLE IN THE COMMUNITY
On 26th June FSC celebrated 10 years of existence, a decade of
hard work, results and continuation. We are very proud to say that
we are among a small number of NGOs in Romania that were able to
start large programmes that are still viable.
o We served over 25,000 people,
o We assured jobs for 200 people, of which 10 have been working
with us since the registration in 1997
o We were granted the Public Utility Title by the Government
o We obtained many national awards
o we networked for the development of the NGO sector and of the
legislation that governs the services
FSC representatives participated in the last quarter to several
national seminars, conferences and NGO meetings were the name of
the organization was referred to as being “serious, professional
and representative for the NGO sector”.
We participated to the “Social
care stock market” a project of American
Chamber of Commerce and Association for Community Relations
with the “Summer school in rural areas” project.
Various NGOs from the country applied and companies looked at the
proposals (an exhibition before the Conference on Corporate Social
Responsibility). Our project was “bought” right away
by Vodafone with 4,200 GBP. FSC was one of the few NGOs to have
sold the entire project.
At the local level we were visible by organizing
important events:
o regional seminar on Palliative care: we promoted the results of
one year of activity in this special and needy field
o celebration of EU day by organizing the event “Europe in
colors” that reunited over 700 children from all the schools
in a painting contest.
o The NGO fair: 30 participating NGOs, authorities and mass-media,
FSC was the initiator and together with 4 other NGOs the organizer
of the event. The aim of the event was to increase the visibility
of the NGO sector in the context of a general bad attitude and partnership
with the public administration. The event was good and raised the
visibility of the NGO sector in the community. Also it was a great
opportunity for strengthening the partnership among the participants.
o The 2% campaign: 2,500 employees (twice more than last year) filled
in the special forms for allocating 2% of their taxes on incomes
to FSC.
COMMENTS ON THE PROJECTS AND RELEVANT
ISSUES DISCUSSED AT BOARD MEETINGS
We organised one board meeting, in May, and we discussed about:
o The 2% campaign
o The volunteers programme
o A possible opportunity through UPC (cable company): contracting
invoice delivery to their clients, a contract of 2,000 Euro/month,
using our volunteers.
The board was very enthusiastic about the development potential
and the impact of the volunteers programme. The volunteers are a
great resource that can be cultivated to become tomorrow’s
sponsors, supporters or colleagues.
Obtaining the contract with UPC can open further opportunities in
this field as many companies do door to door advertising by distributing
brochures and flyers in the postal boxes. This could be a future
income generating source.
We analysed the resources needed to contract with UPC and we advanced
an offer to the company (they have other potential contractors).
The volunteers are very enthusiastic about it and willing to commit
to the challenge. We have no answer back from them but we should
hear in the next couple of weeks about their decision.
The Financial Situation For 2007
There are no structural funds yet
available for Romania.
The political crises caused delays in certain phases of the complicated
circuit of money/approvals.
In the meantime, the NGOs suffer from the lack of grants and get
together to discuss the legal possibility of contracting their services
or new services with the state.
However we understood from the various representations made on
the structural funds that the money will go to the Romanian
Government and will spend through decentralized bodies
on fields that represent priorities for Romania, the first being
economy, infrastructure, professional reconversion and agriculture.
The NGOs can apply for funding if their activity meets the objectives
of the programmes.
There are no EU funds on social
care because this is considered to be the responsibility
of the Romanian Government. NGOs are very worried about this knowing
how many things have to be improved in this field.
Because of the EU adhesion the financial departments changed the
fiscal regulations and decided to stop reimbursing the VAT
to the NGOs !!! (Before, NGOs retrieved the VAT for external
funding).
This means an increase with 19% on the expenses.
[EP Note to Trustees: To clarify
this: Romanian business recieve reimbursement of all their VAT.
However any charity costs we / FSC incur eg petrol for the mobile
health project, food for the street children's centre and so on
we have to pay VAT for which we do not get back ]
Once again the NGOs get together starting a lobby process to the
Ministry of Finance for changing the situation. FSC requested, as
a public utility organization, more fiscal benefits (VAT, reduced
taxation on wages) which will be unlikely to obtain.
We attended an interesting international conference
that covered the subject of “social economy” through
NGOs developing lucrative activities. The conference presented an
European and American perspective and perhaps we should re-explore
this field.
We finally heard from our financial applications to the City Council
and County Council. Our requests have been approved
(60% from the City for Care of Elderly and 100% from the County
for the MHCP and for the Impart).
As predicted, the contracts become functional beginning with June,
ending November. Also, as predicted, the cash is likely
to arrive late which means that we have to cover all expenses
from own sources. These grants do not cover the VAT for the expenses
which means that the NGOs have to cover 19% from own money as well
as their contribution. This issue was approached during the NGO
fair when we had a meeting with the authorities.
These two grants, with all their restrictions and problems, actually
save our cash flow for this year!
Please find enclosed the latest cash flow analyses.
The issue with the Local authorities
After the "summit meeting" in March with the mayor,
when we discussed about:
· The Citizens Advice Bureau location (ie possibility of
moving into it in an extension to our administrative office)
· The two buildings given to us for projects: Casa Pistruiatul
and Day centre for the elderly. The official allocation document
expired last year and in spite of our repeated written requests
they failed to sort it out. The mayor promised to clarify the problem
by signing the documents.
NOTHING HAS HAPPENED!
We sent 3 more papers about these issues since then and we had no
answer. We could, if we wanted, go to court and ask through a lawyer
for an official position.
Our request for the extension of the office was not approved by
the City Council, with no reason.
As you know, we had 20,000 Euros from the Dutch Funds to do the
building. Because the grant period was ending and we had no approval
to do the work we asked them to reallocate the money on other expenses:
salaries and supplies. Unfortunately they approve only 7,500 Euros
and cut the rest of the grant.
In the meantime, we made a formal complaint and asked for a reanalysis
of our request and apparently this time they approved the extension.
We need to wait for the written paper before doing anything.
There is a general bad atmosphere about the relationship NGOs/authorities
and that was confirmed at the recent NGO Fair when very few authorities
were there. The only high level representative that attended the
event was the Prefect.
The Mayor did not bother to attend even though he had a meeting
in the same room that ended half an hour before. However 3 local
councilors were there and they promised to take forward the aspects
raised by the participants: partnership, contracting of the services,
funding.
Programmes and Personnel
All our employees contributed to the 2% campaign managing to double
the amount of forms compared with last year. The motivation was
mainly the internal contest that we launched: a LCD TV, 100 Euro
and 50 Euro for the largest numbers of papers.
It is becoming quite difficult to find qualified workforce in the
social work field. We adverstised for a social worker and nobody
applied. Also we lost another educator at Casa P. The main reason
is the migration to other EU countries.
A large number of staff benefited from various training opportunities,
attended seminars and were involved in organizing events.
We organized a general meeting at the end of June which was very
pleasant and we thanked all the employees for their hard work pointing
out the fact that 9 people have been working for FSC since the registration
back in 1997.
We had the visit of a group of Firemen from Hampshire Fire
and Rescue Service who showed interest in helping with
a building project. After analyzing various possibilities we selected
the project of refurbishment and conversion of a building to accommodate
a day centre for poor children in Podu Turcului.
The project will be organized in August and we have to sort out
various papers and legal implications before than.
We have a busy summer ahead with 3 “summer schools”
projects (volunteers in villages), re-editing the newspaper of Podu
Turcului area (funded by County Council), summer camp for Casa Pistruiatul
children and the rest of the work.
Care of Elderly
Number of direct beneficiaries per reporting period: 401/month
The grant (Dutch Foundation) for the salaries of the nurses ended
in June leaving us with the entire costs to cover.
We obtained a grant from the City Council that enables us to cover
the following costs for 6 months:
o Salaries of the home carers
o Incontinence materials
We mentioned that the two teams of home carers from Podu Turcului
and Racaciuni were taken (in February) over by the County Direction
for Social Care on a programme with European funding where FSC is
a partner. Unfortunately due to delays in grant payments (well known
to us) and because of the complaints from the staff they wanted
to terminate the contract which meant losing 200,000 Euros.
We insisted that they kept the grant which they agreed based on
the fact that we take on the coordination role. The first lot of
money from the grant finally arrived and people were paid at the
end of June.
The lesson learnt from the project, so far, is that when the state
departments are the lead applicants on a grant funded project there
are a lot of problems which they manage very badly.
The seminar on palliative care was a good opportunity
for us to make public the results of the projects so far and the
problems. Working in this field is very hard and is affecting the
nurses because of the pain and death that the beneficiaries and
their families have to deal with. The collaboration with the oncology
department is good.
XXX (Romanian partner charity of the UK charity YYY) have started
their project on palliative care for children for Bacau and neighbor
communities and continue to work on the building outside Bacau that
will be a hospice. They are committed but unfortunately are not
good networkers, preferring to be on their own.
The services in the day centre:
It was very touching to be there at the celebration of 5 years
since the opening of the centre. The beneficiaries prepared speeches,
poems, dancing and shared their personal feelings about the centre.
There was a moment when we recollect the
memory of Dr.Stefan Ciobanu.
Mobile Health Care Programme: Podu
Turcului area
Total number of direct beneficiaries per reporting period: 2,455
We opened a small educational centre in Panu, funded by a grant
from Rotary Llandrindod, and this is already a
great success.
All the children of the village (one of the poorest and most isolated
from the area) come to the centre for various activities and they
really enjoy them. A local woman was identified, trained and employed
to sustain the activity and she proved to be very committed and
skilled.
We obtained a grant from the County Council that enables us to:
o Pay the network of community workers, the 4 people left, one social
worker and the family planning specialist
o Continue to print the newspaper of the area (7000 copies/month)
o Pay for 2 educators in two educational centre
o Assures the materials and simple snacks for the children in the
two centres
Will therefore be able to open a second educational centre in Godinesti
(Vultureni Communa). This village benefits from a great building
that can accommodate the activity and will employ (like in Panu)
a local woman to conduct the activities.
Also will organize 3 “summer schools” projects in Vultureni,
Stanisesti and Podu Turcului in August. This project gets together
urban volunteers with rural kids in many pleasant and educational
activities. This year the project is funded by Vodafone.
We are very pleased with the young family that
is living in the small FSC house in Valea Salciei –Vultureni.
They have their third baby (another girl to the father’s despair),
managed to extend the house and to build animal sheds.
Last time I saw them they were all in the fields weeding, the baby
sitting a small plastic bath tub, and the other two little girls
helping around.
I think we can consider donating them the house as we see no problem
with them.
The rest of the work goes on as before, with:
o Support of the doctors with 4WD vehicles and drivers: we will
evaluate this service in September to see the need for continuation
o Support of many poor families through the network of community
workers: we get various requests for: medical care, housing, food,
clothes, etc.
o General network with mayors, teachers, councilors
We need to allocate some resources to teach the local communities
about planning, services, grant requesting as a first step to increase
their abilities in attracting more funds through projects.
IMPART: COMBINED ART TECHNIQUES,
number of beneficiaries 66
The Impart team helped very much with the Pistruiatul activities
and are now focusing on more direct work with the beneficiaries
from the state institutions plus organizing more training in Bacau
county. This need was identified following and evaluation carried
out in the region. We realized that many people that were trained
by Impart don’t work in the system anymore (most of them left
to work abroad).
We were approached by Children’s high level group
(The Children's High Level Group (CHLG) was founded in
2005 by author JK Rowling and MEP Baroness
Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne.
Its aim is to improve the welfare of vulnerable children across
Europe, operating both politically and practically to build capacity
at a country level. )
To assure Impart training sessions to 5-10 institutions for child
protection were there were identified several problems. We agreed
as they will cover all the costs and the project will be done based
on partnership. We will design a plan and if everything is Ok we
will start in October.
The Impreuna network
Two more seminars were organized in Bucharest and Cluj, both very
successful with good involvement and attendance from participants
from both state and NGO sector.
A new issue of the Impreuna magazine was printed and is ready to
be distributed according to the revised database. The revision of
the database was quite a job as it was time consuming to phone 700
people.
Thanks to Daniel Hristea from FAST the site of the Impreuna looks
better and all the members are posted there.
FSC signed a protocol of collaboration with FAST for the commune
activity on the Impreuna.
Integrated services for child and
family
CASA PISTRUIATUL: reintegration of the homeless children &
support of the families
Total number of beneficiaries for the reported period: 50
In spite of our several written requests to sign a protocol of
collaboration with the City Council we have no answer.
We carried on the work as before, the only financial help (other
than RFFR/FSC) being on utilities from the City and a small grant
from Procopil (French Government).
The continuity of the programme remains a sensitive issue, the
only solution that we see is “contracting” with state
departments and we lobby together with many other NGOs on national
level for the introduction of this possibility in the legislation.
In the meantime we have to struggle to keep it going keeping the
same standards of work in a context of total ignorant attitude from
the authorities.
The children are happy and enjoying a lovely holiday out at the
seaside right now.
VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME
Total number of volunteers: average of 120 active volunteers per
month
Gabriel Magurianu, the coordinator, is finishing
his studies and taking the final exams in psychology.
The volunteers have a busy summer ahead with projects, camps and
all sorts of activities.
We (Irina and I) managed to deliver a training session to 25 volunteer
leaders on project management. At the end of the session we asked
them to put on paper, on a simple form, their own ideas for projects.
We promised them to fund with GBP 200 the most well written and
interesting idea.
We will follow up the session with more training on: fundraising,
planning, reporting.
If we sign the contract with UPC (home delivery of invoices to
about 50,000 recipients) we will need all the volunteers plus a
good logistic.
A group of leaders is already working on the management of the project.
The income generated by this project will assure the costs of the
programme and we can consider renting an office for them.
FUNDRAISING
We are very pleased with the work performance of Ionut
Chirita, the coordinator of the department as he is managing
well to keep the follow up contacts with all the companies, to plan
and to organize various events. He participated to the national
conference on corporate social responsibility organized by AmCham,
a training session (of a poor quality) by FDSC and a meeting of
the network of NGOs working in this field.
I think he needs some better training which we couldn’t identify
so far.
He is working on the following projects:
o The FSC web site: changes, updates, translation; will add a site
for the volunteers programme and one for the palliative care
o A strategy to attract more small and medium size companies to
help us: working on the idea of setting up a “FSC Fan club”
of people that can make contributions
o A strategy to use more the “sponsorship law”, companies
can donate up to 20% of the tax on profit to an NGO. This stipulation
is well known by the large companies which have their own NGOs and
is very little used by small businesses.
GRANTS IN USE
GBP
Total
Government grants Casa Pistruiatul and Care of Elderly L34 GBP 22,600
Racaciuni council-community worker GBP 6,000
Hope for the future, mobile pharmacy and family sponsorship 200
GBP/month
PROCHILD-French Government, Euro 10,000
Dutch Foundations for Home care-palliative care services Euro 70,000
City Council:home care of elderly and volunteers 17,500 GBP
County Council: Integrated services in rural areas and Impart 42,700
GBP
FUNDING APPLICATIONS
SOURCE PROJECT Amount requested
CEE Trust (USA source) A model of volunteerism in the region USD
154,000 (for 2 years)-awaited
Phare Citizens Advice Office Euro-19,500 awaited
Global Fund for TB-through Romanian Angeal Appeal Prevention and
care in rural areas and homeless children, for 2 years Euro-195,000-failed
World Bank Volunteers-summer school Euro 5,000-awaited
Vodafone Volunteers Euro 35,900 –granted
National Agency for Youth Volunteers Euro 12,000: failed
I was asked to send “many thanks for all you do” from
the elderly of the day centre which I am doing now. They really
are very grateful for everything.
We are so lucky to have RFFR as partners so, please convey our
thanks to all RFFR board members for all the support and trust.
With many thanks to Relief Fund Board,
For FSC Board,
Gabriela Achihai, President
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