Visit to Romanian Prison

The population of Romania is 22 million.  The prison system houses 27,000 men and 700 women; 80 are in youth detention centers.  The city of Arad has 2 prisons. One holds 1,000 men, the other 124 women and about 45 men. Both of the prisons in Arad are maximum security and serve several counties in western Romania.

This morning we went to the smaller of the two prisons in Arad, to celebrate "Mother's Day" with the female inmates.  Today's program was unique as 12 boys from a youth detention center in Timisoara visited the women to give a performance. They sang several songs, narrated some slide presentations they had prepared, and to end the morning, they did some Gypsy dancing. One of the boys was even reunited with his mom who is an inmate in Arad. The women crafted traditional mother's day pins that the boys could mail to their mothers, and they also sang a song to thank them.  About 50 female inmates attended the presentation. RCE provided food bags for the boys and food/drink for the prison staff after the performance.

Teacher Simona and Project Caring Coordinator Doina

While I've never been in a prison in the US, I imagine them to be very different. There are very few single cells in this prison. The women live in small dorm-like rooms where 8-10 stay behind heavy wooden doors with lots of locks. Some leave their cells freely and attend in-house classes, or even work a few hours through a community work program, but others stay in their cells the entire day. There are no prison uniforms, inmates wear their own clothes. Food isn't even provided. Inmates need to have family/friends bring in food for them, but only a certain amt can come one day per month. If someone brings in a bag of chips one day, that's it for the month for that inmate. So family/friends talk to assure they bring in the largest quantity of goods allowed on that one day. If inmates don't have family/friends goods in for them, their cellmates share.

RCE provides reading/writing classes and most recently a civics class. Future plans include an English class. Simona does the teaching and Doina helps organize the programs in her role as RCE's Project Caring coordinator. In the spring Doina hopes to have some of the women involved in community work programs donate some time to help paint the fence around the RCE campus. Of course I wasn't able to take my camera into the prison and we had to get special approval in advance of our visit to even get in. But I was able to take a couple of pictures outside. Mary Ann joked that when we have Romanians come to the US for fund raising, if they want to visit the White House we have to submit their passport #s. In Romania, we have to submit our passport #s (and surrender our passports themselves) in order to visit a prison.

Toni

Little Toni continues to do well..she's so darn cute and comes in each day with a different sock on her right hand. Her mom reports she's using her left hand for everything and is doing more and more standing. We'll begin to see her in the home she's staying at tomorrow, so she can work with us in a more familiar environment. Tomorrow morning I will see more of the Sunshine School kids in their daily therapy sessions with Paula.