Education for 50 disadvantaged Romanian children

„Panciu, 7 am, the alarm clock is ringing.

The coffee maker is ready and the backpaper, too. 30 apples, 30 glasses, 3 litres of juice and a great sleepiness.

Five minutes walk, just the time to open my eyes, to prepare my ears to listen, to warm up during the winter and enjoy the first summer in spring. Five minutes that are filled up, every signle day, with faces, customs and habits, greetings and sleepy smiles. The street's intersection, the white dog barking behind the car. Every morning repeats itself, every morning gets filled up.

At the intersection of the two main streets, there's the statue of Ioan Slavici and a little wall where you can sit and wait. That's our place, the meeting point of those who are leaving and those who are arriving; of children, workers, dogs, cars and other dogs chasing other cars.

A couple of children are waiting and a couple of children maybe will let us wait for them. Some of them stay until the school bell rings, only to talk a little or to receive one more biscuit. Some prefer to smile at us from afar.

Panciu spins around us. Some people look and make questions; some people already know, because in Panciu everybody knows everything.

It's been 5 months since we started bringing breakfast to the children attending the Centre Pinocchio. It's an idea, which was born in order to encourage children to go to school and to start the day with energy and on a full stomach. Children without alarm clock, who decide to go to school even if there's nobody at home to wake them up, to prepare and encourage them.

I recall when I was little, my school years. My mother's vocal alarm, the removed blankets and, in the worst case, the open window. I recall I often refused breakfast, so that I had more time under the blanket. I recall my scarce track of time and responsibility.

The breakfast at the statue has become an opportunity to meet, a constant presence, with rain, with cold, with sun, with dogs. In the morning we are people of few words, but of gentle words.”

These are the words of Alice, IBO's volunteer at the Centre Pinocchio in 2016. Thanks to the active involvement of volunteers, we have started providing this new service for the benefit of the 50 disadvantaged children attending the Centre Pinocchio. Thanks to the kind support of Global Giving's donors we can guarantee this new and smiling start of the day to those children that unfortunately do not have the same opportunities as their peers. The „Breakfast at the statue” started at the beginning of 2016 and is still running; it started as a pilot initiative with small hopes of being useful or welcome. It was a bet. Instead, it revealed to be succesfull and today, at the beginning of 2017, children do know they can count on a smile and a genuine brakfast at the beginning of every day. And they do also know that breakfast means school, school means education and education means building a better future for themselves.