Volunteering in Africa Inspires Action Closer to Home in Romania

After volunteering on a house-building project in Malawi, Tina Cretu has a whole new perspective on development and how she can actively contribute to positive change both internationally and in her home country of Romania.

Tina won over doubtful parents and sceptical work colleagues to raise funds to join a trip to Malawi with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for families in need. What’s more, she’s come away from the experience emboldened and with a new confidence that she can contribute to development closer to home, too.

“It’s deeply changed me, I’m looking at things differently now,” said Tina who is 34 and works in digital marketing. “I came back to work and I said to my boss – ‘I want to do something! Let’s try and do something here, in Romania.’”

Romania joined the European Union twelve years ago and since then per capita national output has doubled and the country is reporting record-low unemployment. Nonetheless, inequality remains a significant problem and roughly one third of the country’s population lives in poverty without basics such as indoor plumbing.

Fundraising for overseas development projects and volunteering to do unpaid work in developing countries is a relatively new concept in Romania. Indeed, Romania only shifted from an aid beneficiary country to a donor of official development assistance with accession to the EU in 2007.

“We still have some very important economic and social issues here in Romania,” explained Ana Nila from Habitat for Humanity Romania and organiser of the volunteer trip to Malawi. “Personally, I don’t think that people are as empathetic to the problems that many Africa countries have,” Ana said, “because of the geographical distance and because we are facing our own problems.”

Habitat for Humanity is the lead organisation of the Build Solid Ground project, which receives funding from the European Commission’s Development Education and Awareness Raising Programme. 

The EU’s DEAR Programme supports projects that raise European citizen’s awareness and critical understanding of development and global issues, enabling Europeans to make informed decisions and hopefully positively contribute to development, both locally and internationally.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world and volunteers who travelled from Romania said they were shocked to witness such widespread poverty. 

“There is poverty in Romania, but in Malawi everyone is poor, wherever you look there is poverty,” said Andreea Ploscaru, 33, who also took part in the volunteer trip alongside Tina. “No matter how much you read or see on television, it does not transmit the feelings you have seeing it yourself.”