The Smiles Foundation, Homeless Project

THE SMILES HOMELESS PROJECT

Being homeless In Oradea is similar to being pushed out of society, lower than some of our neighbour’s pets, who at least receive some food and have a warm bed for the night. People will stare at you, some being scared to death, some acting extremely aggressive. “The worst thing of all is when they treat you mercifully, and you feel handicapped”, says one of my 400 friends living out there. “Nobody believes that you actually can do something, that you can be something and that you can break the vicious circle moving faster and faster for years. After so many years, even you will start to believe that there is no way out”.

We started this programme last December, when we found some of these people A homeless family in Oradea

celebrating Christmas out in the cold, freezing and bringing dogs in their tents for a bit of extra warmth. A family had a Christmas tree, small and ugly to us, big and beautiful for themselves, just because they wanted their 14 year old son to be happy for a day, like all the other kids. We looked around them and we realized that behind the shiny streets and happy songs are human beings in pain and suffering. The luckiest of them will place a plastic tent near a hot pipe. It’ll burn your skin sometimes, even needing hospitalisation, but it’s better then living out in the cold.

In the evening we wanted to buy some presents for family and friends. We decided to go to the shopping mall. It is a bit too luxurious for everybody these days, but at least we will have a break, we will give some time only for our family. Just stepping out of this place we realized that next to it, in a small wooden shack, a warm and nice family will live the Christmas drama of Mary and Joseph. Nobody had a place for them, nobody will care, and nobody will even know they exist.

We realized that they’re named like us, and we suddenly cried. I couldn’t tell why, at least not in that moment. Dana and a homeless child

Maybe we did it for their daughters, 12 and 13 years old, so beautiful and polite. They’ve never been to school and are ashamed to receive visitors, because at their age, they feel embarrassed. Or maybe we wept for their mum, sick and tired, trying to keep everybody’s morale up. We’ve cried for feeling so blessed and unworthy of everything we’ve got; for the entire human “homeless race”, being so lonely and sad.

We’ve met many others since. After 11 years of serving in the streets, we never thought that something will shock us anymore. But, here, in Oradea, 20 years after the revolution, there are still people eating from the garbage, dying of cold, pushed at the lower level of Maslow’s pyramid!

The official statistics says that there are 400 homeless people just in the small city of Oradea. Marian and a homeless lady

The authorities can provide a maximum of 150 beds for the winter, some in improvised shelters. The others are so hard to find. Like in old age, they will hide and live like lawbreakers, not because of doing something wrong, but because they shouldn’t exist. When they trust you enough, some will admit that they are daily hunted and beat by the police. Every day becomes an adventure. Sometimes, the people representing the law will fill the police cars with our friends, taking them out, many miles outside the city, threatening not to come back. Bruises and scars will only testify of this cruel reality; tears sometimes…

For this year, the plan is to reach almost every single one living out there. We hope to build strong relationships, based on trust and mutual respect. This will allow us to be a positive influence for their life, promoting positive role models. We will collect all the information needed to develop individual action plans and to identify potential solutions. We will look to meet some of the urgent needs, sometimes related to life and death. Of course, a lot of support will be needed for that.

We don’t want to limit our dreams for the future. We have the skills, we have the heart and we hope that we will persuade others to join our efforts. We’ve testified over the years so many broken lives being fixed with this medicine called “love”. And we have enough for everybody!

We trust and pray for support to fulfil our dreams.

Marian & Daniela Zaharia

Support Options:

UK: Monthly support £30

USA: Monthly support $40

UK: Single donation (£)

USA: Single donation ($)