A new socio-catechetical centre was opened in Bacău County last Saturday for the benefit of Roma children. The centre, protected by Saint Parascheva, is located in the local school in Poiana Negustorului village, Blăgești commune.
The project was proposed and supported by Fr. Lucian Dima from Poiana Negustorului and was implemented thanks to the support provided by Bacău Deanery, Blăgești City Hall, the village school, the “Ovidenia” Association and the European Roma Association for intercultural progress and promotion.
The Deanery of Bacău will provide school supplies and help for spiritual activities, such as summer schools, camps or pilgrimages. “Ovidenia” Association will provide food for children; the local school will provide rotating volunteer teachers to teach students. The European Roma Association for intercultural progress and promotion will ensure school, health and legal mediation. It will deal with the promotion and support of Roma young. Blăgești City Hall will offer spaces to carry out activities and ensure a social worker and psychologist’s presence.
The classrooms, where 25 children will study, have been blessed. The courses will be held once every two Saturdays for 4 hours. In the future, as the health crisis subsides, meetings will be more frequent.
The Archbishop of Roman and Bacau’s delegate was Fr. Daniel-Ionel Marari, inspector at the Office of Catechesis and Youth activities.
“The future of our people is secretly written on the faces of these little ones, that is why they must be brought here, to be trained in the secular teaching by teachers, but also in the spiritual and religious teaching.”
Doru Tănase, Chairman of the European Roma Association for Progress and Intercultural Promotion, expressed his hope that young people will be trained for a better future through this project in which “education and religion go hand in hand.”
“God made the school to be physically with the Church. We have to believe in God, to have strong faith because we will not succeed in life if we do not have faith,” he said on March 14.
Read more:
- Romanian Orthodox Church top 9 pastoral care programmes for Roma people
- The Church has actively contributed to Roma liberation, social inclusion
Photography courtesy of the Archdiocese of Roman and Bacău
Follow us on Twitter: @BasilicaNews
