All the activities performed by Sfanta
Ana Association had, started from the needs of the beneficiaries, that
is children with severe mental handicap and their families, the results
of the cooperation being permanently supervised and evaluated. We consider
that the involvement of the beneficiaries and the close relation with
them is of great importance in obtaining the best results.
And as there is always room for the better, we started diverse projects
of improving the services and activities offered in Ana Day Center.
Firstly, we continued the endowment of the center with the necessary
equipment.
We created best conditions for developing activities in Ana Day Center,
thanks to the projects “A Better Home” and “Let’s
Work Together”, financed by the International Women’s
Association. Trough these projects, we managed to assure a proper
heating for all the rooms inside the center, by acquiring a thermal
station of great capacity.
The quality of the services offered grew more during the project
“Give me a Chance to Be Like You”, started in 2001, financed
by “Smile” Foundation Romania. We completed the endowment
of the room for speech therapy and for kinesi-therapy with equipment
of great importance for the development of the recovery services for
the children from Ana Center and for the children that come to our
center only for these services. As a result, their performances grew
visibly.
The improvement of the quality of the services offered was continued
through the project “Always together” financed by the
Co-operating Netherlands Foundations for Central and Eastern Europe.
The work of arranging the attic of the building where Ana Day Center
functions made the space more efficient, so that we managed to create
one more classroom and an office for occupational therapy. In the
same project, we bought a van for transporting the children.
The set of services extended again with the project: “Let’s
Be Colleagues” financed by the Romanian Fund of Social Development,
realized in partnership with the Social Services of the City Hall,
Sector 1. By arranging the basement of the building, two workshops
were created, of plastic arts and clay modeling, as well as of complex
stimulation, for the teenagers with severe mental and associated handicap,
with a view to increasing their capacity of recovery and social integration.
In 2002, under the title “Ana Day Center”, took place
the project of sustaining and improving of activities inside the Center,
with financial support from, the National Authority for People with
Handicap. Besides completing the equipment from the recently-created
workshop of complex stimulation, the project also aimed at making
the community aware of the problems of people with handicap. In this
project we elaborated 3 informative brochures on the different types
of handicap (cerebral motor infirmity, motor and neuromotor handicap,
mental and associated handicap).
The material sustenance of the activities in Ana Day Center was
also made possible in 2002, in the project “Subvention on the
basis of Law 34/1998”, financed by the Ministry of Work and
Social Solidarity. In this project, the Government supplies a subvention
for Ana Day Center, an amount that covers part of the administrative
costs, nutritive supplement and transport expenses for our beneficiaries.
Another project, “A Warm Meal for the Children”, funded
by Sirois Foundation, supported the continuous functioning of Ana
Day Center, by maintaining the boarding school schedule, by offering
nutritive supplement for the children, and by contributing to the
cleaning and hygiene material expenses, until September 2002.
The creation of a new service, extremely useful and welcomed by
both our beneficiaries and their families, was for recovery and recreation
at week-ends through the project: “Together at week-ends”,
financed by World Learning, in the program Child Net , having as a
partner the Direction for the Protection of Children’s Rights
sector 1. In this project, the children had entertaining activities
inside or outside the Center, activities of puppet and cloths design,
name-days celebrations, museum visits, circus spectacles, excursions
outside town, at monasteries and forests, of 1 or 2 days, together
with the parents, at Calimanesti, Predeal, and Cheia.
In the field of organizational development, being a member of RENINCO
Association (the National Network of Information and Cooperation for
the Integration in Community of Children with Special Educational
Needs), Sfanta Ana Association organized, in March 2001, with financial
and technical help from UNICEF, the national seminar “Equal
Rights and Chances for the Children with Severe Handicap”. Participants
at the seminar were representatives of main NGOs working in the same
field, of Bucharest University, of the National Authority for Child
Protection, of the National Authority for People with Handicap –
they established a basis for future exchange experience and cooperation,
with a view to permanently giving information about the existent situation
and the progresses, and to perfecting the staff.
Another remarkable event in our organizational development was the
support given by the Princess Margarita of Romania Foundation through
funding the project “More and Better, a Task to Accomplish”.
Between September, 1, 2001 and August, 30, 2002, we intensified the
activities of improving the image of the Association, we printed promotional
materials about our activity, presentation brochures, a monthly mini-magazine
of internal usage: “Close to You”, and we created our
own web-site on the Internet. In the same project, we managed to open
two branch offices at Vaslui and Sibiu, where 5 children from each
benefit from services following the model of Ana Day Center
