#6 Social Work Conference

#6 Social Work Conference

While in Cluj we were able to attend, “Building Better Social Services By Working Together.”  The conference theme was: “Partnering for Development of Community Social Services.”  Emil Boc was there, he is the major of Cluj-Napoca.  During the conference we had head sets so it could be translated into english.  I think it was the first two speakers that lectured in english though.  It was kind of difficult to pay attention sometimes when the main voice is in a different language but than you are hearing english in your ear.  In the beginning they mentioned how people are falling through the cracks and systems need to communicate with each other.  This was one of their hopes for the conference is to bring people together.  **I did not write down who spoke about what so this will be more of an overview and key notes.**  One point that was actually brought up a lot through out my time in Romania was that there needs to be more of a focus on prevention.  That there also needs to be person-centered care.  This was interesting because I learned about this in the past year.  The idea is called, “people first” it means having the person come first not their disability.  At the beginning of the conference they spoke about the Roma people.  They showed pictures of the different Roma camps especially, “Pata Rat” meaning garbage dump.  The person that spoke about this mentioned that the city of Cluj is trying to find a solution to this area.  They suggest, renewable low maitanece housing, long term job opportunities, vocational training and community buildings.  An organization that was mentioned a lot through out the conference was the European Social Network.  They are non-profit and have 30 organization through out Europe.  They hold workshops, seminars and try to develop a link of policy making.  There focus is on developing community care and mental health.  Another topic that was mentioned during my trip was called, “Second Chance.”  This is for students who leave school before getting to high/secondary school.  This program has now been integrated into the public school system.  This reminded me of our GED programs.  One of the problems that is faced in second chance is that sometimes these students lack motivation which causes them to fail.  The solution they recommend is to improve motivation and have counseling which includes the family.  Overall, this conference was very informative.  There were a lot of important people there and we were lucky to be given the chance to attend the conference.

Two of my friends with their head sets on.

#5 Estuar

#5 Estuar

The first mental health agency that we went to was called, Estuar.  They were first established in 1993 in Bucharest then in Cluj in 1997.  Currently they have 70 clients and have 15 activities.  Estuar is a day program for clients who mostly have schizophrenia or depression.  Services are free and they include group activities, cognitive behavioral therapy, psychiatric counseling, occupational therapy and vocational counseling.  Some of the group activities include: computer, literature, art, work, theater and sport.  There are a total of 9 specialists within the agency. One of the duties of the social worker there is to go into the field to find clients.  As in the U.S. there is a stigma against those with mental illness.  Two of the people we met from Estuar told us that they tried to overcome that with a project on mothers.  They gained a lot more clients and attention after this project was completed.  Estuar only receives a small amount of money from the local authorities.  The rest comes from European projects and donations.  Clients that attend Estuar are there on a volunteer basis and are referred from a commission that determines their eligibility.  This commission is similar to our SSI.  Estuar is the only foundation in Cluj for mental health services.  The local hospital does offer some services.  One important concept they discussed was the role of the family.  Often families are not very supportive.  This is one of their biggest challenges because the clients tend to relapse when they are living in the same environment.  Another point that stood out to me is that Romania they do not have group homes for those with mental health issues.  This was interesting to me because group homes are very popular in the U.S.  

As we were getting ready to leave we were able to meet some of the clients.  They did not know english but they were still excited to talk to us.  This one lady, I do not remember her name wanted to show me her art work.  At Estuar one of the activities is making art.  Once the art is made they showcase it around the building.  If you want you can donate money and choose a piece of work.  This woman showed me a few different paintings that she had done.  It was really nice to see how proud she was and that even though I could not speak the same language as her I was still able to communicate.  I ended up buying a jewelry box for one of my friends that was from Estuar.

#4 Lost in Translation

#4 Lost in Translation

So for the first week of being in Romania the Cluj Days were taking place.  Pretty much it is a festival that goes on for a week.  Today we went to the first day of it, of course it was raining a bit.  As a note it rains here a lot! It is kind of like Florida though because it’ll rain for like an hour than it’ll be sunny the next.  We all lost faith in the weatherman.  It does not work here in Romania.  I also packed for hot weather and its been in the low 60’s here.  So no shorts for me.  There is a main square in the city and there they had all the beer tents and the concert stage.  Through out some of the walking streets they had tables anything from clothes, jewelry and food.  This was the first time I was able to eat traditional Romanian food.  While in line we were trying to pronounce the name of the beer that is made in Cluj.  It is called, Ursus.  The guy in front of us thought it was funny that we were trying to pronounce it so he was helping us.  He also explained to us that the goulash we were ordering comes from Hungary originally but the Romanians took it on as their own and changed it up a bit.  I started noticing that even if you pronounced one syllabal wrong in Romanian people did not understand you.  I was having a lot of difficulty in speaking the language.  However, I did not have as much

trouble reading it because of the classes I took in Italian.  We also learned after a few times it happening to people that you need to always count your money.  A few of my friends received the wrong change back.  After lunch we shopped for a bit and then made our way to a different section which had tables filled with stuff that was made by the Roma people.  There were a lot of Roma people selling their stuff.  This section of the festival was pretty crowded and we kept getting bumped into.  This was the first time I really worried about being pick pocketed. The stuff they made was beautiful but it was difficult talking to some of the people because they knew no english.

That night we went to Club Midi.  The music was all house/electronic music so I felt right at home.  I really saw that music is universal.  I had a lot of fun and even tried Absinthe.  It burned and took your breath away.  Anyway the educational point from the club is that the bartender tried to scam me.  I gave him 10 lei for my beer that cost 5 lei.  I was waiting for change and he like waved me off.  I turned to my friends because I thought maybe I was wrong on the price.  I checked the menu and I was right I was supposed to get 5 lei back.  I told him then that I need my change.  First he told me that I only gave him 5 lei than he changed the story and said he gave me my change.  We were told not to play the foreigner card or argue with people here but this was ridiculous.  He spoke English fine and I was really polite but persistent about getting my change.  I guess he realized I wasn’t going away so he gave it to me. 

#3 Babes Bolyai University

#3 Babes Bolyai University

Today we went on a tour of Babes Bolyai University which is where we have been staying.  The campus is somewhat like Rutgers because it is all over the city.  They say the city is the campus.  One of the first language term definitions we learned is that “faculti” in Romanian means “schools.”  We were all very confused at first about the meaning of this term.  First we went to the Babes Bolyai Museum of History.  We learned about how the college was founded and its history.  The name Babes Bolyai came to be from two universities merging together. One being Hungarian and one Romanian.  The museum had many old objects, papers and pictures. 

After the museum we went to the school of psychology.  This was very interesting because I received my bachelors in Psych.  We went into the laboratory where they had a virtual cube.  This cube (pictures posted) is for treating people mostly with anxiety disorders.  I was the first person that was able to try it out.  It was really cool and felt like I was in the video game Call of Duty.  So to me it looked like I was in a video game.  The lady that led the tour there was getting her Ph.D in psychology.  She also showed us that they had virtual helmets as well.  This was very interesting to me because I had read about this technology in treating PTSD within the military.  I tried asking her about the treatment of PTSD but she did not give me much of an answer unfortunately.  Sometimes I don’t if its a language barrier or they just do not treat PTSD very often.  She kept mentioning Agoraphobia and other phobias.

After sometime at the school of psychology we went to the school of social work.  We met with the director Maria Roth.  Mihai was also there, he is our guide/translator/organizer.  He pretty much does everything for us.  Mihai is a professor at Babes Bolyai school of social work and a friend to Becky.  What was interesting to me was that the school of social work building was a lot older than some of the other schools we had seen.  You would think it’d be a newer building because social work did not become a profession till around 25 years ago.  But maybe its in an older building because the profession is not as popular.  We asked a lot of questions to Maria Roth.  She answered them the best she could but she did seem too prepared.  She mentioned that this was supposed to be an informal meeting.  What she did talk a lot about was the adoption situation over the past years in Romania.  Her speciality is also in child abuse.  During communism (1965-1989) the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu wanted to increase the population.  He banned birth control and abortions.  The population grew and families were unable to care for all their children.  Ceausescu told them give your children to the state.  These children were put into institution/orphanages.  I will talk about this more later.  Anyway when the communism period ended, Romania opened up for international adoptions.  Many children were adopted from all over the world.  More specifically from the U.S. and Great Britain.  Now international adoption is closed, the Romanian government is trying to get the children back into their homes with their families. 

**I tried uploading a video of me in the cube but it would not work =(

#2 History

#2 History 

So after our long few days I was very exhausted still the next day.  We had to be up early to go to the Resource Center for Roma Communities.  We met with Dr. Florin Moisa who is a Social Worker.  He was a part of the first generation of social workers in Romania.  The social work profession did not become more recognized till after 1989.  There were no non-profit organizations till 1989.  Dr. Moisa explained that the U.S. had a strong influence on social services in Romania in the ‘90s.  We spent about 2 hours learning about the Resource Center for Roma Communities and about the Roma people.  “Roma” is the proper name for “Gypsy.”  The term “gypsy” was given by others it does not exist in the Roma language.  Roma people are considered, dirty, thieves and they are looked down upon.  The Roma people face discrimination, prejudice and stereotypes.  One interesting thing I learned is that Roma is not an ethnic group.  What makes them different from others is that they have darker skin.  They also wear different clothes, work trades, speak Romani and live a traditional lifestyle.  There was also a genocide of the Roma people.  The Roma people often are in

contradiction with Romanian law.  Two of the complex issues are marriage at a young age and child labor.  It is in the Roma tradition that you get married by the time you are 15 years old.  Romanian law and the society seem to be against this because it is not the norm anymore.  Dr. Moisa said that the Roma people don’t call it marriage anymore at this age they describe it as the daughter is going to live with an aunt or something.  The issue with child labor is that young children are being sent to work.  In the Roma community family is very important and by having the children work they are supporting the family.  1/3 of the Roma population is children ages 0-14 years old.  What many social workers struggle with is that you don’t want to take away their traditions but they no longer fit with social norms.  The Roma community faces, poverty, high crime rate, difficult health situation, discrimination and lack of social services.  Today there is diversity among the Roma people.  There are some that are traditional and those that are formal.  Some that are formal do not even acknowledge that they are Roma.  We will hopefully visit one of the Roma villages but it is still up in the air.

After spending sometime at the Roma center we went on a tour with Professor Ardevan.  He teaches history/philosophy at Babes Bolyai University which is where we have been staying.  We learned a lot about the city of Cluj.  We went into many beautiful churches, such as St. Michael's Church and St. Peter and Paul Church I believe.  Because we were walking around the city I did not take notes.  One of the coolest things we saw was during the revolution a cannon ball hit a wall and the cannon ball is still there.

Finally, at the end of the night we went grocery shopping.  I was not too worried at first but it was a whole different story when we walked into the store.  Thankfully, there were a lot of pictures but everything was in Romanian.  I know I should have expected that but we didn’t.  The store was really crowded and everyone was pushing.  Also people were really in a rush.  My roommate Cathia and I worked as a team though.  Many of my classmates experienced a lot of confusion and anxiety.  We also had to deal with the language barrier.  It is crazy how just a simple grocery run could be so hectic and a learning experience.