Past and Current Projects Receiving ACN Support
Country of Focus: Romania
Thus far, ACN has focused its support in Romania on:
A. The care of abandoned infants and toddlers in environments that are stimulating and nurturing. ACN completely renovated a hospital's playground so that infants, toddlers, and small children could be taken from their wards into the sunshine. This was an opportunity previously denied by attending physicians for lack of a safe play area for the children on the hospital compound. Through a grant from ACN, these children are now allowed the sunshine and fresh air previously denied them because of safety concerns.
B. The care of formerly institutionalized children in foster care settings. Although residential 
centers in Romania for 10-12 children often provide a good first step when removing children from orphanages, ACN prefers to support foster care apartments for 2-3 children only, and ACN has supported one foster care apartment for girls in Bucharest, Romania until recently, when it was transformed into an independent living center for older teens. One of the foster home's greatest achievements was that it helped the girls gain acceptance into the community. The girls befriended the neighborhood children and were included in neighborhood games and activities. To stand apart is often to be discriminated against. An ACN grant underscored ACN's desire to help integrate these abandoned children back into the community.
C. Enabling individual children to grow into self-reliant adults. In promoting self-reliance and self-care, rather than welfare, we support programs and independent living centers that help older teenagers acquire the independent living skills and vocational training that they will need in order to leave their foster home or institution and that will allow them to become productive members of their respective communities.
D. Providing educational holidays for children who otherwise would never have had the opportunity to leave their institutionalized settings. One ACN grant enabled 29 orphans living in a Center for the Learning Disabled to attend an educational summer camp in Constanta on the Black Sea. This was the first time any of the children had seen the ocean.
E. Co-sponsoring conferences. One three-day Summer School Conference brought together young people from NGOs throughout Romania to discuss how to break down the discrimination often experienced by young people with HIV/AIDS.
Pictures of Romania projects can be seen throughout the website.
Country of Focus: Guatemala
ACN's efforts in Guatemala have concentrated on dormitory roof repair to protect abandoned and very poor children from nocturnal vampire bat attacks. The children had a hand in repairing the roof, carrying wood from riverboats to their dormitory in the Guatemala jungle. Pictures can be seen on ACN News' Vampire Bats Attack Guatemalan Children.
Country of Focus: Taiwan
ACN supports efforts to address the needs of children abandoned by parents who are either incarcerated or running from the law. Our grant was earmarked for babies and infants in the only center of its kind in Taiwan.
Country of Focus: Moldova
ACN recognizes that with about one-third of Moldovans aged 25-55 leave Moldova each year to find work outside the country, often leaving their children behind with promises of support. When employment is not secured abroad, however, and when promised support is not realized, the children are sometimes abandoned. Picked up by the police the children are placed in residential schools where they will stay as wards of the state until they complete the 9th Grade. Since continuing education costs money that they don't have, these children can become vulnerable.
These are the children in Moldova on whom ACN focuses. They finish 9th Grade without knowing how to survive outside of the institution that for many, has been "home" most of their lives.
ACN is currently sponsoring 21 older teenagers in three different training programs. Two of the three guarantee job placement post graduation. The training programs consist of a cooks-confectioners training program, a hairdresser and manicurist training program and a driver/chauffeur program.
ACN has also begun collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to assist abandoned of abandoned young people reintegrate professionally and socially into Moldovan society.
Country of Focus: Tanzania
Upon learning that albino children are being slaughtered for body parts used in potions believed to bring great wealth, ACN felt compelled to assist these children. ACN discovered a small center near Arusha that had opened its doors to albino children "on the run" who were in desperate need of warmth, food, and protection. In a space initially intended for 18 orphaned street children, the small center now houses 82. ACN seeks funding for:
- Dormitory expansion
- Re-drilling the compound well to improve drinking water supplies
- Building a small clinic to address the high incidence of skin cancer
- Building an independent living center so that the older children can learn how to transition to self-care
- Procuring a vehicle for the center and providing a salary for a driver/mechanic
- Expanding the compound's school by two additional buildings so that it meets government standards
- Initiating a vocational training program that reflects the needs of the local area, e.g., driver/mechanic could teach mechanic trainees in automotive technology and area vehicle repair could generate income for training program support
- Initiate a micro-financing loan program (and train others in its management) for training program graduates
Next Section: Who We Support.
Contact Us
Assisting Children in Need (ACN)
600 Cameron Street
Alexandria, VA 22314, USA
Tel: +1 703 340 1677
Send us an email