Organizatia Salvati Copiii – Save the Children Romania

The organization SAVE THE CHILDREN ROMANIA is a social institution, whose mission is to guarantee the equality of chances for all children, irrespectively of the community they come from, by using its own expertise, as well as through advocacy activities and lobbying the decision makers and by mobilizing the civil society leaders.

All its actions are based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. For 20 years, Save the Children Romania, a national non-governmental, of public utility organization, has been promoting the rights of the child. More than 500.000 children have been included in educational programmes, protection, social and medical assistance programmes, stimulating their participation in activities of promotion and recognition of their rights. At present, the organization has branches in 12 counties and Bucharest, more than 6000 members and more than 1000 active volunteers.

It is a member of Save the Children International, the world’s largest independent organization for the promotion of children’s rights, including 29 members and conducting programmes in more than 120 countries.

Always acting in the best interest of the child, Save the Children Romania underlines the importance of and focuses on the right to free and non-discriminatory education for all children and their protection against any form of violence.

Our main fields of action are:

Education

Ensuring the access to education for all children is made primarily through the Programme of social and school reintegration for the economically exploited children, that takes place in 43 educational centres.

In 2010, 3.688 children and their families benefitted from social and educational services, through the “A Second Chance” Programme of school integration/reintegration for the children that are older than the appropriate school age to be included in the mass educational system (646 children), the “School after School” programme” (2.116 children), legal, psychological and social counselling (926 children).

Access to education is also provided within the Programme of ensuring access to preschool education for children from disadvantaged communities. In 2010, 45 Summer kindergartens were organized, from which approximately 1.000 children benefited, most of them from rural areas.

Within the programme ‘We grow up together’, that aims at diminishing the negative impact of parents’ economic migration abroad upon the children left at home alone, 8 educational centres have been set up : in Timiş, Caraş-Severin, Hunedoara, Dolj, Dâmboviţa, Argeş, Constanţa and Bucharest, from which, at present, 439 children are benefitting.

In November 2010, Save the Children launched the national Programme “Guidance and Resources Centres for Inclusive Education – Complex Educational Services for preventing and correcting the school dropout”. 32 educational centres will be set up and will be functional, where, for 3 years, 7.680 children coming from disadvantaged communities will be integrated. 24.000 people will be informed on the necessity of preventing the school dropout and the importance of education in increasing the chances for the integration on the labour market.

Protection

Children’s protection against violence comprises complex programmes that include both information and education campaigns for parents, teachers and specialists in the field of health, education and social protection on the benefits of positive discipline, and evaluation and psychological counselling services, offered free of charge to specialists in specialized centres: The Centre for Emotional and Behavioural Education for Children (635 children beneficiaries in 2010), Counselling Centres for the abused, neglected and trafficked child (710 children beneficiaries in 2010), as well as in the 5 Counselling Centres for Parents (834 parents beneficiaries in 2010). Within the Sigur.Info Programme, Save the Children aims at protecting children online, promoting children’s safety on the Internet and the responsible use of the computer. At the same time, the programme provides counselling services to children, parents and teachers in order to avoid online risks and ensure instruments for reporting an abuse.

In 2010, during the information activities, 12.000 children were informed in schools, and 22.000 adults in street campaigns, by the sigur.info volunteers. In 2010 the Project “Youth against violence” continued to be implemented in Bucharest, Argeş, Dolj, Mureş, Timiş, Iaşi, Suceava and Neamţ, aiming at identifying and developping some alternative methods of preventing violence in schools, with students’, teachers’ and parents’ participation. Within this Project, in 2010, 530 teachers nationally were trained, 160 children took part in the Annual Meeting of Children and 4.000 children benefitted from the Anti-Violence programme held by the teachers trained in 50 schools included in the project.

The 120 children that took part in the National Forum of Children formulated a set of recommendations in order to diminish violence in schools and hended them in to the state’s authorities.

Children’s Rights

Promoting and protecting the rights of the child has been a major concern of the organization Save the Children Romania in the 20 years of activity. The peer – to – peer information sessions, training the volunteers – high school and college students -, involved in promoting the rights of the child among children from 5th -8th grades, the national contest of projects regarding the rights of the child – are only a few examples of activities carried out in order to promote the right of every child to survival, protection, development and participation. More than 18.000 children were involved in 2010 in these activities.

Through the National Centre of Children and Young Volunteers, Save the Children promotes the participation, the voluntariate and the involvement in the community; in 2010, more than 1.750 volunteers nationally took part in training sessions and carried out, alongside experts, specific activities within the programs of the organization, being encouraged by the coordinators to apply their own ideas of projects. The organization’s Centre for the Information, Documentation and Research on the Rights of the Child continuously monitors the process of observing and implementing the rights of the child in Romania.

Learn more about SCR’s main Programme: EVERY CHILD MATTERS and EMERGENCY RESPONSE. Download the .pdf description of the Organization