about romania: youth with migrant parents

Last weekend, I headed to a Peace Corps conference about Romanian Youth with Migrant Parents (YMP). YMP is not a “new issue” here, but it definitely is coming to a head.  The situation is this (in simplistic terms; it’s pretty complicated overall).

Romania is an EU country BUT Romania doesn’t have a strong economy or infrastructure like other EU members. Romania isn’t using the euro, unemployment is high, jobs have been dried up for a good long while. And the crisis hasn’t helped. Romanians can work abroad with ease because they are part of the EU and earn a salary in euro. SO. . . There’s been a large migration of working adults to Spain and Italy.  Last time I heard almost 20% of Romania’s gross national product was from Romanians working abroad sending euro back to family.  So this isn’t a tiny proportion of people doing this. The snowball effect is that children are growing up without parents or with migrant parents.  This then leads to issues of abandonment, high truancy and drop-out rates in school, increased need for social services, larger populations of street kids, and the list goes on.

The thing is that we (as development workers/volunteers) can’t “fix” Romania’s economy to lure these parents back.  The economy is too big of an issue.  But we can make an impact with the kids we see on a daily basis — be aware of their needs, establish programs that draw them in, work to give them the assets they need to succeed, and even just check in on them to see what their family situation is like.  It’s definitely not a fix, but it’s a coping mechanism.

Additional resources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/world/europe/15romania.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.singuracasa.ro/
http://www.fiosif.ro/index.html