Group Hopes To Send Doctors, Teachers To Romania Advocates Try To Help Orphans, Children In Institutions By Cutting Red Tape
Someday, Skip Chilberg wants to close a Romanian orphanage.
In the meantime, he’ll settle for reuniting some institutionalized children with their families and moving those who have no families into group homes.
After traveling to southeast Romania in May, Chilberg and the nonprofit organization he helped found are working to find better homes for girls in an orphanage for the mentally handicapped.
The former Spokane County commissioner and treasurer is the president of the Romanian Children’s Project.
Chilberg, Keith Davis, a missionary who specializes in economic development, and Spokane attorney Bruce Gore founded the organization this spring. They hoped to take over an infant orphanage in Braila, a city of 300,000 on the Danube River.
But the agreement with local officials called for assuming all the financial burden and 55-member staff, with little of the control.
“Frankly, we didn’t feel we could realistically take on a project that large,” Chilberg said.
Instead, the volunteers hope to send Spokane doctors and special education teachers to Romania to evaluate 260 girls at another, more troubled, institution. They’re hoping to find children, ages 7 to 18, whose families may be willing to take them back.
Children were often placed in orphanages at the government’s suggestion because of disabilities, including hyperactivity or a speech impediment. Other families cannot afford the children.
The Americans’ goal is to reunite 50 girls a year with their families through incentives, such as free medical care, clothing and, ultimately, access to farm land. Another 100 orphans without parents would be moved into group homes.
Chilberg’s involvement stems from his membership in the Northview Bible Church. The church building in north Spokane is the headquarters of the International Assistance Program, whose business projects provide a financial base for Baptist churches in Romania.
In April, IAP volunteers traveled to Braila to open a diagnostic medical clinic. Delays in licensing and a critical need for nearly $30,000 have postponed the opening several weeks, said Davis, executive director. But he is optimistic about soon providing equipment and care not available.
“The only thing close to it is a lab in Bucharest,” Davis said. “One gal said, ‘This is a dream come true.”’
Chilberg, who serves on the state Growth Management Board, said his trip was a primer in Romanian politics and religion. The Baptists he’s affiliated with are a distinct minority and, despite a new reform government, many local officials are Communist holdovers. That makes change very slow.
As one Romanian official told him: “You want to jump, but with us you’re going to have to learn to take small steps.”
, DataTimes