Way of Joy is a non-profit organization that, in partnership with People Against Poverty, develops programs to help disadvantaged families living in poverty in Iasi, but also in communities such as Ursita, located outside the city.
With the financial support we received this year, we managed to continue our activities even in conditions of maximum difficulty due to the pandemic.
Since the beginning of 2020, Way of Joy has set itself three main objectives:
1
. Educational activities
Within this objective, we aimed for all children in impact communities to be able to continue school activities under normal conditions.
With additoinal help received from PaP, we managed to buy school supplies, shoes and clothes for a number of approximately 100 children in Iasi but also in rural communities.
We organized even in pandemic conditions, meetings for extracurricular activities with a small number of children from Ursita.
Due to the suspension of school activity, our future aim is to help the children’s education further by buying laptops and video cameras or other electronic accessories, thus ensuring the participation of all children in distance school education.
2. Canteen activities and medical support for all the families in our project.
This year we continued the canteen program “CAMELIA PROJECT” where we were able to feed, sometimes twice a week, children in dire need thanks to the extra funding PaP were able to send. Due to the pandemic we had to organize children in two / three groups, which required both additional efforts but also additional supply costs.
It should be mentioned that from 30 children who came to the canteen regularly at the beginning of the year, in the last months, we had by organizing small groups even 50 children in one week.
With the help of PAP, we managed to build an underground storage area for the long-term storage of the food, necessary for the canteen program, and in the future, we intend to build a larger annex, so that the children can benefit better conditions. This project falls under our Family Partnership programme for the Ursita area.
During the pandemic we have also been able to provide medical assistance. We organized medical education and counseling meetings where we did personal hygiene education and we ensured the purchase of masks, detergents and disinfectants were provided to each of the families that we work with.
3. Continuation of Legal Aid Program & Back to Work programme
This last year, the activities of this program have diversified, even if the COVID pandemic made it so that we could no longer work directly with groups of people but more individually. Further, we were sought and asked to help in various situations, especially now that it was no longer possible for people to queue in line, but essential documents regarding obtaining their legal identities or birth certicates had to be scanned and programmed obtained through the internet. Many assistants are still needed to help register for the hearing or to exchange documents. This work covered areas like:
- Death certificates
- Birth certificates
- Identity Cards
- Financial advice
- Counselling
- Help in preparing documentation to admit 2 people into an old people’s home
- Recovery of property deeds which were over 30 years old for a case in Ursita Village.
- Employment help and mentoring for 4 people who were hired
- Housing for 4 solved cases
- School enrollment for those unable to do it themselves
- Counseling and representation at the Iasi City Hall of a person with a mental disability in order to extend the rent of a dormitory room, a case we are still working on.
Even though the COVID pandemic generated many restrictions we continued to do our duty.
Collaboration has been made City Hall of Iasi, Mironeasa, Miroslava, Ciurea, as well as with the Pension House, the Local Employment Agency – Iasi, Iasi Civil Status; Iasi Housing Department, Iasi Court Archive, Stefanescu School Group.
Thank you for all your support during this most difficult year. We know how difficult it is in your own country and we are truly grateful because without the support of People against Poverty, we would have faced many deaths and illness amongst the communities.
