[romania_eu_list] Romanian women

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 15:57:45 -0700

"She is very much what Romanian women are, hard working and yet living with very little. But every time I come, she puts out this amazing splash of food. Her hospitality, and that of all Romania women, is exceptional if you saw the poverty they lived in. These people don't have a lot, but they have a spirit inside them that what they have they appreciate and like giving what they do have to others."
 
Sunt cuvintele unei laureate a Premiului Jefferson.  De peste 50 de ani, sora Mary Rose Christy ajuta comunitati sarace din intreaga lume.  Ca atatia altii, a venit in Romania dupa ce a vazut la televizor ororile din orfelinatele romanesti, hotarata sa faca ceva pentru a ajuta si a schimba situatia.  Iar organizatia pe care a infiintat-o la Sibiu chiar face diferenta.
 
Thank you, sister Mary Rose!
 
Vali
 
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The Jefferson Award: Sister Mary Rose Christy, humanitarian
- Suzanne Pullen
Saturday, October 15, 2005
 
Jefferson Award winner: Sister Mary Rose Christy, Burlingame-based activist and founder of the nonprofit Romanian American Association for the Promotion of Health, Education and Human Services (ARAPAMESU), which helps at-risk Romanian families, in Sibiu, Romania.
 
How she started: An outspoken member of the Sisters of Mercy since 1950, Christy has helped poor and underserved communities in Arizona and California in the 1950s and '60s working as a nurse in hospitals, speaking before state legislators and creating community-outreach programs. (Not one to be waylaid by injury, she submitted dozens of letters to the editor about political and social issues under an assumed name while recuperating in bed from six back surgeries.) In the 1980s, she moved to her order's mother house in Burlingame to start a development program before being sent to El Salvador after three nuns were murdered there. But it was a television program in 1990, which revealed the horrors of orphanages in Romania after the fall of communism, that set her on the course she has followed for the last 15 years. "The scene was so awful and I was screaming out at the TV," said Christy. "I thought, I am a nurse and I can go there to help." After she arrived at the Sibiu orphanage in 1991, she overhauled the children's daily diet, started a school and created a youth recreation program.
 
And now: Christy believed it was important to discover the root cause of the estimated 100,000 Romanian children being abandoned in orphanages -- because most of them had living parents. She began focusing on reuniting children in Sibiu with their families and establishing more than a dozen programs to address poverty, ranging from housing to health care. In the last 10 years, she says more than 2,500 families have been helped through those programs and the nonprofit Romanian American Association for the Promotion of Health, Education and Human Services, which she founded in 2001. Now, she say, less than 2 percent of children the association works with end up in orphanages.
 
Inspiration: "I saw the need and thought I had to go," she said. "How can I see that and walk away from it? I wanted to do what I could to make life better for those orphans. Then I realized it was better to use my energy to keep the families together instead of just improving the orphanages."
 
Vitals: Sister Mary Rose Christy, 82, was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. She became a registered nurse in 1945 and has a B.A. in social work and a B.A. and a M.A. in political science from Arizona State University.
 
Who had the most impact on her: Christy says that a mother of one of the translators she met when she first went to Romania has left a lasting impression on her. Every Sunday after church, Christy visits the mother of four in her small home, sometimes bringing visitors and volunteers. "She is very much what Romanian women are, hard working and yet living with very little. But every time I come, she puts out this amazing splash of food. Her hospitality, and that of all Romania women, is exceptional if you saw the poverty they lived in. These people don't have a lot, but they have a spirit inside them that what they have they appreciate and like giving what they do have to others."
 
In her own words: "I would really like people to know that I am just one American who went to Romania. Lots of Americans saw it and went, so did people from other countries. People who gave up their jobs because they felt like they wanted to do something, like after Hurricane Katrina. One thing about Americans, they have a tremendous spirit to help."
 
What others say about her: "She is a visionary," said Emy Matesan, who met Sister Mary Rose when her older sister was working for the nun as a translator in Romania. The 26-year-old is now studying for her master's degree in international relations at Arizona State University and is the executive director at ARAPAMESU chapter in Arizona. "She has an incredible capacity to get to the root of the problem. She was the first one to ask why children were in orphanages and to be proactive about creating systemic change." Matesan said Christy had a huge impact on her, and since 1995, more than 2,000 children have been prevented from being abandoned or put into orphanages. "Everyone knows her in Sibiu and she has impacted the community as a whole, increasing awareness on things like domestic violence, women's rights and other women's issues. She is a very determined activist with a huge heart. She never takes no for an answer, and that is why she has achieved so much."
 
To find out more: Call Matesan at (623) 523-9739 or Sister Mary Rose Christy at (650) 340-7427 or visit www.arapamesu.com
 
Each week, The Chronicle features a Bay Area resident who has won a Jefferson Award for making a difference in his or her community. The awards are administered by the American Institute for Public Service, a national foundation established in 1972 to honor community service. Bay Area residents profiled in The Chronicle will also be featured on CBS5-TV and KCBS-AM, which -- along with The Chronicle -- are Jefferson Award media partners.
 
Page B - 6
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/10/15/EDG4PDN06R1.DTL
©2005 San Francisco Chronicle


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