Not all children have the same start in life, but the fight is not lost even when the first years are marked by difficulties. Being in the state’s protection system, at the age of 10, Mariana entered the 5th grade without knowing how to read. Now, at 20 years old, she is a first-year student at the Faculty of Dental Technology. What has changed in the meantime? She didn’t give up and met people she describes as angels. “We’re getting BIG” is the project through which hearty volunteers go to foster homes and family apartments to give children and young people help with homework, outings and activities, but also – most importantly – to instill in them the confidence that they often lack. Now, the NGO is fighting for another cause: to offer scholarships to young people in the system who have reached college, so that they do not give up their studies due to shortages. For this, they are raising funds and will be swimming in the Swimathon in June.
Obedient people and angelic people
Looking at Mariana, few would imagine what is hidden behind her blue eyes. The young woman was born into a family without possibilities, which did not want any more children, and the first years of her life were marked by abuse. At 2 and a half years old, he entered the protection system, but ended up in the home of a foster nurse who proved to be aggressive and neglectful.
“She was addicted to alcohol and she was not a quiet consumer, she was an abusive consumer. The beatings were very frequent. I was traumatized, but it was a lesson. It was not found out, because I was afraid to tell. I was threatened that if I told I would end up in a foster care center and it would be bad there, I would be beaten and I would not receive food. Things about which I discovered over time that they are not true. (…) At the age of 10, I was a child who couldn’t read, even though he was entering the 5th grade and had a lot of deficiencies in terms of school education”, says Mariana.
A teenage girl who also ended up in foster care with the same woman spoke further and made complaints. That’s how Mariana escaped from there and met the first people who would influence her future for the better.
“Then I was taken by two foster carers from Corod commune, Galați county, whom I now call parents. They took care of me, took me to training and helped me get to high school. (…) The counselors from Child Protection told me that I wouldn’t even get to the professional level, because I have a low IQ. But I showed them the opposite”.
For five years he stayed in the house of the family who gave him hope that it is possible. “At the age of 15, my mother got sick, she couldn’t keep me anymore, she had to close her contract and I ended up in the foster care center”. It was the moment when, the young woman recounts, an avalanche of negative emotions was triggered:
“I was starting to hate myself, thinking that my mother got sick because of me, that all the past that I haven’t solved since I was little was because of me, and that I was abandoned because of my fault, because I was wrong to get to that point. I tried to kill myself. I didn’t succeed. And I said to myself: <
>”.
Fortunately, he chose the second path.
“It was hard, I can’t say no, but at the right moments the Ajungem MARI volunteers also came in my life. They opened my eyes, they guided me, and for me they were like angels given by God at that moment. I started doing activities with them – camps, outings, I also did a vocational course – and they gave me confidence that I can do a lot of things”.
Another thought that helped her rise, says Mariana, was to make the foster carers, whom she considers her parents, proud.
At 20, her life settled down. She is a first-year student at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy in Galati, she left the system and lives in the student dormitory.
“I chose dental technology because it seems to me a practical field, where I can work quietly and do not put a person’s health at risk. After graduating from college, I would like to be a dental technician, work on ceramics and make veneers and prostheses. I really like my colleagues and what I do! The teaching staff is very well trained. And I feel like a family at the college! I can’t say “We get BIG” anymore. I am a my second family. In my heart, every person has a house, a villa full of memories. And sometimes I think that I was left on earth to change something,” the young woman confesses.
“Ajungem MARI” wants to offer scholarships for students coming from the protection system
“Ajungem MARI” supports more than 3,500 institutionalized children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds through educational programs, mentoring, emotional support and scholarships.
And now they aim to support 15 students who come from the protection system, through a monthly scholarship of 700 lei, offered for 8 months. That’s why they will participate in this year’s edition of the Swimathon, an event where people swim for the social causes they believe in. There is a fundraising campaign on the event page, and until May 8 those who want to support Ajungem MARI can register as fundraisers. They can only choose to raise money online or swim at the event in June.
“A scholarship is not just “a little support”, but the certainty that they can continue to study, that they don’t have to choose between food, transport and education. A scholarship of 700 lei per month, for 8 months, means accommodation, study materials, transportation to college and, above all, the peace of studying without the stress of survival. Every scholarship opens a new door to a better future”say the people from Ajungem MARI. And Mariana and other young people in the system who went to college and are building a future different from the start they had in life are the proof. Mathematics, Automation, Acting or the Police Academy – these are just some of the faculties to which they managed to be admitted. Because, at some point, someone believed in them.
“The “Ajungem MARI” volunteers offered us, in addition to activities and help with homework, two very important things that we lack: affection and attention. We can talk very freely with them and they always have a hug or a kind word for them, something to support us. If we are having a hard time, we know that we can always turn to them, to encourage us and lift us up”, says Mariana.
Thoughts that Mariana passes on
The young student has several messages for children and youth who, like her once upon a time, are now struggling with difficult questions and feelings of helplessness.
“To not listen to the mouth of the world, to fight, because they can! I can do many things! And to allow themselves to dream, without paying attention to those who get in the way of their dreams. To always see the beautiful side of life, no matter how hard it is. Everything that happens – every breakup, every blow, every word said on the nerves – for us will be a lesson, through which we will learn how to react to certain events”.
Asking for help, even if it’s hard for them, is another piece of advice. Finally, Mariana adds:
“Let them be vulnerable. Because we are afraid of being vulnerable, we think the world can attack us. But let them feel. And cling to any hope. No matter how small and trivial it is, cling and pull with their teeth!”.
