Putting the family into the Family Partnership Programme was new to them but fully welcomed by the whole family who really wanted to move on with their lives. Living in a 2 roomed rent house are 6 people. Lydia (name changed) with her own son, Lydia’s sister and her son, the Grandmother who is blind and death and Lydia’s husband.
Now their life is not a simple one, there are financial problems, health problems, suicidal intentions and the major problem of dealing with family violence. Our Family Partnership caseworkers for this particular family, Marianna and Sorin, have been doing an amazing job with meeting the family regularly, giving mentor support where needed and being the listening ear where they could open up and share their desperate pleas for help. Lydia and her family have been attending meetings, which we run as part of the programme, where they can work with experienced social workers in a group environment alongside other families, and this has had a positive effect on their lives. To date, they have attended every meeting. Unfortunately, it is difficult to have the same relationship with the father, but Marianna and Sorin continue to try to talk to him.
Out of all this sadness, however, comes a ray of light. Mariana was approached by a contact (on FB) who asked her to help find her family. Ionela (name changed) 27 years old told Marianna where and when she was born. She knew the names of her mother and father and that she was looking for her biological parents. Her story is a sad one. Born in 1991 she was diagnosed by doctors as having the AIDS virus. She heard that her mother was very scared and because she was so poor and without the possibility of ever being able to give her the special medicines and treatment to survive, she abandoned her baby. Ionela was taken by the state through the Direction for Child Protection and was introduced into an institution until she was 12 years old. After that, she was fostered into a family and stayed in their care until she reached 19 years old. From the age of eight, Ionela had been looking for her biological family. Today she works in a factory, which was founded and opened to support people with disabilities.
When Mariana heard all this information and saw her the photograph on FB, putting two and two together she contacted Lydia in the hope that her hunch was right in that Lydia was in fact the birth mother. She was; Lydia was so excited to hear that her first child was still alive after considering she was probably dead, she was happy to meet with her.
Tears of joy were shared between mother and daughter who had never met since the day Lydia gave her away her precious daughter to the authorities. Ionela told her mother “I have a special gift for you. You are a grandmother” and presented her son.
Since this first meeting, we have held several Parent meetings with a specialist Counsellor under the provision of our Family Partnership programme and she has met individually with both Lydia and Ionela. Future meetings have been made with them so that they can work on the future of the family as a whole.
We would like to thank the sponsors for all your ongoing support for this family.
If you would like to consider becoming a Family Partner, please contact us via this link
