Ten years have now passed since the registered charity, the Tenby Romanian Children Support Group was established in Pembrokeshire. In that time the charity has provided holidays in Pembrokeshire for over 300 children from the orphanages of Bucharest; a large quantity of material aid has also been donated to the orphanages.
In 1993, the charity took their first Ford Transit Minibus to Bucharest, for use by the Child Protection Department of the Council of Sector 5 Bucharest, in support of disadvantaged children in the city. This was followed in 1998 by a new Transit Minibus, donated to a registered Romanian charity, principally for use at a school for deaf and handicapped children in Bucharest. The charity also donated over 100 new hearing aids and test equipment to the deaf school.
1997 saw the charity purchase their first four room apartment in Bucharest. This was used to provide accommodation for children leaving their orphanage in their late teens, with no homes to go to. This was followed in early 2000 by the purchase of a second apartment, the two apartments providing accommodation for a total of 12 young people.
In the mid '90s the charity also brought several groups of Romanian artistes to Pembrokeshire, dancers from the Romanian National Ballet, musicians and a youth folk dance group, staging concerts across the county in order to raise funding for the charity.
In 2001, the Mandolin Band from No. 10 Orphanage in Bucharest came to Wales to compete in the Llangollen International Music Festival, followed by several performances in Pembrokeshire.
By the end of 2002, with many more recent human tragedies around the world attracting the headlines, the charity was finding it increasingly difficult to attract the necessary funding to continue its work in Romania. With great sadness the trustees and committee have taken the decision to wind up the charity.
The two apartments owned by the charity have been donated to the UK registered charity, Light Into Europe, where the Support Group are confident they will continue to be used for the benefit of disadvantaged children in Bucharest, for many years to come.
Light Into Europe benefit from strong international funding. They have permanent staff resident in Bucharest, where they support many groups of disadvantaged children. They also operate the only free Air Ambulance service in the whole of Romania.
The two apartments are to be named the 'Tenby Apartments', carrying the Tenby name and the work of the Tenby Romanian Children Support Group into the future.
All the remaining assets and funds of the Tenby Romanian Children Support Group have also been passed to Light Into Europe.
The trustees and committee of the Tenby Romanian Children Support Group would like to express their sincere appreciation and thanks to all the kind people and organisations in Pembrokeshire and beyond who have supported the work of the charity in so many different ways over the past 10 years, making it possible for the charity to brighten the lives of many disadvantaged children in Romania.