History
There were the years after the fall of communism in Romania, in 1989. The focus of the Occidental societies was, suddenly, headed toward our country. In the beginning, the Western media showed the shocking reality beyond the “Iron Curtain”. For the first time, the Western societies saw the plight of the Romanian orphanages.
As always, during the times of crisis, the human solidarity rose up. People, impressed, began to collect and send aids to the country. They came to see the actually situation, came to bring relief to wretched children in Romanian orphanages.
SKIP (the Pestalozzi Children’s Villages Foundation in Switzerland, based in Trogen, was one of the charities which decided at that time to engage in Romania. They came to bring material aids, impressed by the images in the media. But, when they arrived here, they noticed that the situation was far more serious. One swallow does not make a summer. In a country which suffered many privations was hard to cover, by aid needs.
Therefore, the Pestalozzi Children’s Villages Foundation from Trogen decided to become more deeply involved in education and in changing the child welfare system, based on its experience of 50 years in the administration of children villages.
SKIP Switzerland, together with a handful of Romanian enthusiasts, founded in 1994 Pestalozzi Foundation Romania. In partnership with the Swiss Embassy in Bucharest and the Ministry of Education Romania, Pestalozzi Foundation set up a project that would make history in the post-revolutionary Romania: the first vocational school of social pedagogy, that span over a period of two years, for the educators working in children’s orphanages.
The opening of the project was a success. Selection was drastic, many educators in children’s homes were, at that time, unskilled, “restructured” from other fields. This school represented a rare opportunity for them. The added value of Pestalozzi School was that it was neither a “weekend” school, nor a merely theoretical one. It was an “on the job” formal training, during which educators studied theoretical modules alternating with modules of practice, during which they had the opportunity to put in practice the theoretical concepts learned in class. For the first time, their work was guided by the Supervisors of the Pestalozzi Foundation and they have received professional counseling provided by the program.
Pestalozzi School was a success. Through the Pestalozzi Foundation, the profession of social pedagogue was introduced in the COR in December 1995 and the first three classes (1995-1997, 1996-1998 and 1997-1999) were successfully completed.
Along with that, the Foundation developed, through the Department for Innovation in Social Assistance, projects whose direct beneficiaries were the children in orphanages. Thus, the Foundation has established a family-type house in the village of Giurgiu county, where eight children were raised, one of the first of its kind in Romania. In Bucharest, Fundatia Pestalozzi opened three social apartments, in which the young people who were raised in orphanages began an independent life with the support of the counselors of the Pestalozzi Foundation.
The Foundation also owned a day care center, the “Seven Star Club” and had developed projects of Life Orientation for all children in orphanages. Oftentimes, the clients of these projects subsequently remained to work as volunteers in the day center.
From the very beginning, the effort of the Foundation was a coroborated one. All our programs had both a theoretical orientation, sustained by the Department of Training and a practical one, put in practice by the Department of Innovation in Social Assistance.
In 1999, a lucky break made possible a partnership with the University of Bucharest, the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, so that the training programms had risen from the secondary school level to the college level. The University of Bucharest founded the College of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, which included, along with Social Welfare, two new branches, Probation and Social Pedagogy.