After School Club

Ionela has a vision to set up an after-school club in Radauti.  She’s learned some important lessons from Ariadne (see the Ariadne article), but her idea is different : to reduce the school drop-out rate.  

 

One of the main causes of dropping out is poverty, linked – sad to say – with a lack of parental interest.  Such absenteeism is likely to lead to failure at the National Exam at the end of Middle School (see the Education in Romania article), and this will result in a blighted future.

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There are 5 Middle Schools in Radauti, of which two are in the poor area of town – ie near the Hannah Centre, so Hannah are ideally situated.

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Some of these kids would benefit from individual help, and the hope is to identify a group of teachers who would be willing to volunteer their time for free for a couple of hours each week.  

 

Another issue is access to IT :  school pupils are often given projects to do which involve online research and require a laptop to type their projects up on.  Poor kids don’t have laptops or the Internet at home, and so can’t do their homework. This leads to a cycle of shame and absenteeism and further failure.

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Another problem is that poorer families may not always appreciate the need for these things, and/or will need their children to help in the fields etc.  So just laying on a club will not be enough:  to make it worth the parents’ while to send the kids along, Hannah will have to offer something the parents can also appreciate – ie they’ll need to give them supper.

 

There is a need therefore for some refurbished laptops – the plan would be to start small.  There’s plenty of space at the Hannah Centre in Radauti, but for a long time now, this has mainly been used just as a storage facility.  Toilets, kitchen, a suitable room, heating are all there, but will need to be thoroughly refurbed.

 

There is a possibility here.  Hannah have in the past received some very practical help from a French team from Strasbourg, led by Etienne.   Etienne’s team assist with all sorts of projects around the world, not just in Romania, but he is coming over in August to assess whether this could be one of their projects for next Summer.