We believe in safe communities for all citizens.
St RCHF believes in safe communities so that all citizens can live without fear and in peace. We are proud to work in an official partnership with The Romanian Minister of Interne – Inspectorate of Police in Suceava County, plus support the work of Police Inspectorate’s throughout Romania and within Europe alike.
Law and order are the basis of a set of sound common values that allow us all to live within a safe society today.
Within our partnership St RCHF helps Police officers in the crime prevention and juvenile section, plus road safety department with Traffic Police officers.
Working together as a team we support actions of crime prevention. At Ciocanesti in Suceava County we produced a Youth center, which was opened via St RCHF partner sponsored funds in 2013 and provides a place of safety for over 300 children were they have organized activities 3 nights a week, plus other events, all of which keeps children occupied, off the streets and out of bars, with an added bonus that parents know were their children are and who with and that they are in safety can easily check up by telephone, plus are themselves welcome to donate free time to help run this youth club.
In 2014 we plan to open also 2 more youth centers, one at Vama and the other at Marginea within the county to offer even more children a place to enjoy themselves in safety and be occupied in a responsible way.
St RCHF along with Police officers educate children on the dangers of narcotics and in recent years have held seminars for young people in both Suceava and Botosani counties with respective county Police officers. Children need to know the dangers of narcotics before they are offered the same. The peddlers of drugs don’t care about a child’s health as their only interest is to gain a new customer who is soon addicted and they’re life ruined whilst still at a tender age. Children in state care are especially vulnerable and again we educate to bring home the real dangers that soon becomes with addiction, which takes hold quickly. Prevention is better than cure in all instances!
St RCHF is also a affiliate member of EURAD – (Europe without drugs), plus works to EU standards on narcotics elimination and education via EAD (Europe against Drugs) for which in 2012 we received an award for our work in this important domain.
It is vital that young people grow up understanding their responsibilities to society and being themselves responsible within their community. In this far-reaching domain we teach young people about adolescent problems and give sound advice on compartment. Recently we held a competition at a children’s center in Gura Humorului were children were encouraged to produce a poster on the above subject and had a truly great result when Brian Douglas and Police officers went to both judge the best posters, hand out prizes and also give a talk to the children on behavior problems of young people that can bring them into contact with the law.
Each month St RCHF volunteers are out helping Police officers in this important prevention of crime partnership all the time finding new ways to educate that are exciting and appealing to young people with an end result that we have a safer society with young people being responsible and understanding their limits.
We teach children to choose friends carefully as well as places to enjoy oneself in free time as its all to easy for a child to be led astray when in a crowd and this can lead to a minor offence taking place and as we all know if left unchecked minor offences can easily become more serious!
In 2012 and 2013 St RCHF held 2 summer holiday camps for children in families who could not afford their child a holiday away from home and in 2014 we plan to expand this with no less than 3 summer camps thus being able to offer 60 deserving children a camping holiday filled with fun, excitement, organized games and solid camp food, plus the excitement of sleeping in tents and being able to sing and enjoy evening around an open camp fire. Again this year as in the previous years Police officers will join in at the camp and help with children, plus give a talk and allow children to participate in very interesting role play sessions on crime prevention, which children in previous years have thoroughly enjoyed!
Road Safety is a priority
St RCHF has always considered that road safety is a priority as far too many vehicle drivers and innocent civilians caught up in needless accidents loose their lives or are seriously injured every year. As an NGO we teach about the dangers of driving any vehicle whilst under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. We advise about the dangers of not upholding speed limits as again here is a major cause of accidents resulting in fatalities as is with drivers who do not adapt their speed to road conditions in bad weather.
In 2013 we started a new joint project with The Inspectorate of Police in Suceava County to address the serious amount of accidents involving horses and carts within Romania. In this country slow moving horses and carts and fast moving motorized vehicles use the same roads and the two are a recipe for disaster and this sadly all too frequently happens resulting in both human and animal loss of life!
The project came about via a simple conversation Brian Douglas had with Mrs Arrabella Michell a friend of St RCHF when she visited Romania in 2012 and developed through exchanges of ideas into a full project to aid road safety for horse and cart users who live mainly in rural areas and simply have not the funds to purchase a vehicle of any type, plus horses and carts have been used all over Eastern Europe of hundreds of years so are a everyday and traditional way of rural transport. Its not unusual to see a horse and cart filled with children going to school even on a main road as so often villages have main highways going through them or to see a cat full of agricultural produce going to a town market.
Accidents occur mainly from behind especially at night or in bad weather when visibility is well reduced as an approaching vehicle simply in the dark or bad conditions fails to see the slow moving horse and cart ahead. The result is sheer carnage and loss of life in many cases, plus added serious injuries to others who may escape death on the cart when it is hit by the vehicle.
In our collaboration and with funds from UK animal charity SPANA we were able to design, have produced 4,250 reflector plates in highly reflective 3M material on metal plate the size of a vehicle number plate and spent all of the fall of 2013 with Police officers including road traffic officers stopping horses and carts and fitting these reflective plates, so that the cart can bee seen in the dark and in bad weather easily by a vehicles headlights, thus saving both animal and human life alike.
In 2014 if further sponsorship can be found we hope to continue this important road safety project further and mention that the complete reflector plates cost just 1 euro per unit. You are free to make a donation small or large to help save lives in this valuable project.