Mai multe despre Archway la: <http://www.archwaykids.org/> http://www.archwaykids.org/ ---------------------------- Vali "Noble blood is an accident of fortune; noble actions are the chief mark of greatness." (Carlo Goldoni)
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." (Jimi Hendrix) http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18306350 <http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18306350&BRD=1281&PAG=461&de pt_id=566835&rfi=6> &BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=566835&rfi=6 Orphans' Angel Marissa Yaremich, 1Staff 05/06/2007 Editor's note: Register reporter Marissa Yaremich and photographer Melanie Stengel recently traveled to Romania to tell the story of a West Haven woman's efforts to help the country's orphans. This is the first of a two-day series. BUCHAREST, Romania - A dollop of deflated rubber - still highly prized as a soccer ball - scrapes across the concrete courtyard as Florin, a 15-year-old orphan, darts past the orphanage's dog and thumps the ball against a wall. The shy Florin, who was often chained to a radiator as a boy, forgets his pockmarked childhood when he loses himself in the soccer game. Before arriving at the orphanage, Archway Inc., Florin survived Bucharest's convoluted sewers and underground tunnels - a fate thousands of Romanian children suffered during the impoverished aftermath of oppressive, communist-era leader Nicolae Ceausescu's 1989 assassination. When police delivered him to the orphanage, Florin was able to communicate only by barking. Three years later, Florin, an ethnic Gypsy who is in the fifth grade, laughs, wrestles and chats about Bucharest's popular professional soccer clubs, Rapid and Steaua, with the 17 kids at the orphanage. Watching and caring for the former street kids is a 56-year-old American woman from West Haven, who arrived in Romania in 1997 driven to give these kids a better life. Susan V. Booth has helped dozens of kids since opening the 25-bed orphanage in 2001, but now faces a new challenge - the financial survival of Archway, Inc. "They're the people I want to help for the rest of my life," said Booth, a Metro-North railroad conductor who travels from her Peck Avenue home several times a year to visit her lively brood, ages 5 to 17, at the crimson-colored, three-level orphanage. Yet when Booth discusses the orphans, her words trail with an echo of hope and despair. Just neighborhoods away from where Booth's orphans fondly call Archway "Casa Nostra," or "Our House," scores of other children - dismissed as sub-class Gypsies - crawl through sewers and fend off stray dogs for food scraps. Instead of identification papers to help obtain jobs, they bear cheap tattoos depicting the names of honored, lost and dead loved ones. Rather than home-cooked meals, they huff on the narcotic fumes of Aurolac, an industrial paint, or solvent-based glue. "We're poised to break that cycle of poverty of these kids that are lepers, who are having lepers of their own now. We can beat this," Booth said. But, she emphasizes: "Believe me, we have long way to go." >From TV to Reality Her calling came without warning, direction or divine intervention. It didn't even come with the box of tissues Booth needed when her humanitarian heartstrings for Romania forever knotted in 1990. Then a Metro-North Training Department manager working out of Manhattan, she clearly recalled watching a 20/20 episode to ditch a soured evening with a then-beau. Booth's romantic misfortune immediately muted when the tearful ABC News co-host Barbara Walters unleashed the life-altering expose on children warehoused and mistreated in Romania's negligent and crumbling state orphanages. The footage aired just months after the death of Ceausescu, who had outlawed abortion and birth control in a power-hungry delusion to build Romania's labor force, spurring international criticism. Without government subsidies helping Romanian families, sometimes with 10-plus children, many poor parents abandoned their young in Bucharest where they, in turn, resorted to sewers or the state orphanages. One abandoned child would tell Booth years later how his mother brought him to Bucharest from the countryside and told him, "I'll be right back with an ice cream." The mother never returned. "These kids just stole my heart," Booth said of the expose. Determined to help the institutionalized kids, Booth took a $13,000 pay cut and pursued a master's degree in social work that she received in 1996 from Southern Connecticut State University. Simultaneously, her geopolitical interests led her to intermittently teach English in Bratislava, Slovakia, through 1996. But it would take until 1997 until Booth stepped foot on Romanian soil for one week, which at first turned out to be a disappointment with the exception of Irish photographer Steven Doyle. "I was so pissed. Here I turned my life upside down (but) . nobody (humanitarian agency) wanted me because nothing 'big' was going on," Booth said. But her disgust would turn to intrigue when Doyle revealed to her the children living in the sewer. She later tried to feed some of them at a Bucharest McDonald's only to be kicked out because employees disliked the kids, who are often petty thieves. Infuriated, Booth sent McDonald's headquarters an irate letter and photographs of the kids in front of McDonald's all over the city, chastising them for ostracizing an able-paying American. McDonald's responded by awarding her a grant she used to launch a soup kitchen and clothing distribution center for street children, which legitimized her efforts and later helped her obtain Archway's nonprofit license in 1999. Golden Arches to Archway Booth's subsequent work vacations to Romania's sewers tested her idealism and conviction. "I can't tell you how many times I've been in jail," she said, noting her blonde hair stood out among mostly dark Romanian characteristics, not to mention she carried American cash in an economically uprooted country. She's not only been falsely imprisoned, but forced to stand in "shin-deep" snow by fake police tirelessly smoking cigarettes and demanding her cash. Others mugged her for a valuable bag filled with American jeans and she was deliberately struck by a taxi driver. Booth pushed on with the aid of a few dedicated Archway staff, as well as her sister, Carrigan Middle School teacher Karen L. Booth of West Haven. She sold the soup and clothing center and bought an unfinished house from a widowed Gypsy woman, who "very, very begrudgingly" sold it to Booth for $75,000. The house is now worth about $400,000. Back in America, Booth's initial efforts brought her brief national media acclaim and donations rolled in, allowing Archway's six Romanian staffers to care not only for street kids, but entire families who needed temporary refuge. At the European Union's request, Romania banned international adoption except to close relatives in 2001 due to child trafficking issues, leaving poor families literally stranded in Romania with only the sewers, state institutions and private orphanages, like Archway, to help. So many desperate parents begged Booth to take their children, prompting Archway to obtain the necessary government licensing in 2001 to turn Archway into an orphanage. The parents had to legally relinquish their parental rights to Archway, but can see their children during visiting hours, Booth noted. Pediatrician Dr. Giorgeta Toma, 66, provides on-site medical evaluations of the children, many whom are infected with tuberculosis. "We just took in any kid until we were filled," said Booth, who is pained by her need to send several kids back to their families for failing to abide by Archway's rules. These include a curfew, no drugs, no street relationships and an agreement to graduate from high school. To date, only one orphan, 10th-grader Dorin, 17, is closest to graduating, and staffers said he is determined to get a job with identification papers Archway helps the orphans secure. Without identification papers, Romanians can't officially go to school or get a job. Still, scores of the children's merit diplomas plaster the walls of the staff office, and despite some past issues with teachers belittling the children because of their Gypsy heritage, some kids, like Elena, 10, and Ronaldo, 12, are among the brightest honor students, according to Damaris Unqureanu, their teacher at public elementary school No. 163. Yet Unqureanu, also an Archway employee, said some older Archway kids encounter difficulty learning because of their troubled pasts. Although admittedly not keen on school, Alex, 14, said he prefers to remain at Archway and abide by its rules rather than return to the state orphanage where, staffers said, a night watchman repeatedly beat him. "No good of other orphanage," Alex said in broken English. Alex falls silent as Ronaldo translates in more fluent English his friend's ultimate desire to live with his older sister who occasionally visits him, unlike his mother, who abandoned him as a baby. "No mom here," said a suddenly lighthearted Alex, kissing the amber snout of the orphanage dog, a cocker spaniel named Leo, who follows Alex everywhere. As for Booth, Alex's brown-eyed gaze immediately softens. "She's good. I like her. She's nice and helps me," he said. Because of her, Alex added, he no longer eats state-issued soup. Now he eats pizza - with Romanian bologna on top. Such small joys, Booth said, are proof the many grants and donations to Archway generate better lives for her orphans. Every bit helps, even the crumpled dollar bill and nickels a New Orleans resident sends Booth each month. But Booth had to end her street outreach program last fall because Archway's troubled finances can't keep up with the orphanage's $10,000-per-month expenditures. "It's a small world with a lot of good people in it. I refuse to be (permanently) interrupted by this interruption of finances," she said. Now she wonders: "What happens if I don't have (the $10,000) at the end of this month?" Then she shares her next endeavor: sell the orphanage building, create a better Archway and climb back into the sewers to help the most destitute children. Coming Monday: Down in the gutter with Bucharest's street children. CNew Haven Register 2007
