Things Can Only Get Better?

Last month on our blog, we brought your attention to a short film that the UK's Channel 4 had broadcast about the living conditions of many of Bucharest's homeless in the sewers under Bucharest's main railway station. If you missed it, you can watch the video again here.

The video portrayed a life of drugs, crime and misfortune for the residents of these compacted tunnels under the EU's 7th biggest city. For most, it was harrowing and hard to watch and showed the reality of what the Romanian government is choosing to ignore on its own streets.

Less than one month after broadcasting the report, Channel 4 returned to Bucharest to follow up on one of the fallen from the initial report.

It's impossible to know what will happen next to Bruce Lee and his gang. Since the original report, BTG have heard of different ways in which the government has attempted to deal with the situation. Reports of sending smoke bombs down the sewers to flush out the residents were met, quite rightly, with protests from human rights organisations. Now that Channel 4 has once again reported on the desperate situation, we can be sure that the government will have to respond somehow. Let's hope it will be sooner rather than later before another of these angels falls...

It's Been A While

Yes. We've done it again. We've been quiet. Really quiet.

However, this time we're not going to write a long excuse as to why our blog has remained silent. Nope - we're just going to go ahead and tell you what we've been up to:

Our website is SERIOUSLY almost finished. We've found a great designer (thanks to Ross Tanner and Flosites in Moldova) and a programmer (thanks Danny George) who is putting the finishing touches to it as we speak. We wanted to give you a sneaky peek but decided not to....it's too good to tease

We've got some great organisations who we are working with. So far we are in talks to represent organisations dealing with domestic abuse against women, granting wishes to children with life-limiting illnesses, homing displaced families, working with young adults to encourage them to find employment and an organisation that teaches street performance to street kids. We'll let you know more when the website is up and running....

Together with Casa Ioana and Hope and Homes For Children Romania we will hold a Quiz Night every second Wednesday (starting 2nd July) at Mojo Music Club. Each night will benefit all three charities and we are so honoured to be part of this amazing partnership with not only the charities, but also Mojo Music Club. Here's the info for the next event:

Our Chief Executive and Co-Founder, John McKellar, has been awarded the British Empire Medal in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his work towards services to charitable work and to the community in Moldova. You can read more about how John found out about the honour here

We're about to launch an NGO Toolkit as part of the British The Gap NGO Academy. This program will offer training on aspects such as fundraising, marketing, sales and leadership (amongst others) and will be led by experts in the field. Watch this space for further information as we launch towards the end of the summer. 

Phew! That's your lot for now. The weather in Bucharest has been a mixture of thunder and lightning storms and sweltering heat (and that's just today) so we're off to enjoy the summer sports at Wimbledon and Brazil. Come on Halep and Murray - a Romanian and a Scottish Wimbledon championship double would be the perfect remedy to this heat....