Ramona

Ramona Kallai

In December 2000, Regent's Park College Boat Club passed a motion by which it resolved to sponsor a Romanian child through The White Cross Mission. It was decided that the money should be raised by a termly sponsored 24-hour erg. A girl called Ramona Kallai was selected for sponsorship.

Ramona was born on 6th May 1984 in Oradea, the tenth child of her mother, Gizela Kallai. Her father is unknown. At one month old she was admitted into institutional care in Oradea, then was moved to Cadea in 1987 and to Nucet in 1991.

When Ramona was admitted to Bratca, thus into the care of the White Cross, in 1995, she had a medical history of bronchitis, rickets and pneumonia.

Ramona in Bratca 1996.

The White Cross Mission made notes on Ramona's progress:		Ramona Summer 2000 Ramona 1998
December 1995	Ramona appears to have no medical problems, is toilet trained and has good mobility. She is attending the school in the spital. She is a lively, outgoing girl, and gets on well with the children and adults. She loves chocolates, sweets, fruit and cake. Her speech is good.
December 1996	She is doing well at school, loves walks, music and dancing.
May 1997	Ramona spent some time at hospital in Oradea with suspected appendicitis.
December 1997	Ramona finds her school work hard, but she is motivated and interested. She is now writing, and is very keen. She is very well behaved when out, and can be very chatty and friendly, but also at times is quiet. This year she played one of the kings in the nativity play, and absolutely loved it.
May 1998	Our other Ramona, a little blonde girl, refers to herself as Ramona Blonde and Ramona Kallai as Ramona Negre (black or dark). Ramona does not seem to mind. She is a very dark skinned girl, and also is very well built. In school she is very able, her speech is good. She does love individual attention, and is always happy to be with an adult, continually smiling.
September 1998	A cheerful, self-confident, well-behaved girl with a good sense of fun.
December 1998	Ramona had some dental problems, which were sorted out in October. She is working hard at school.
March 1999	Ramona and five other children moved to our third house, Casa Anoushka.
August 1999	Settled in well in the house, and has grown very tall. She helps run the house. She is very good friends with one of the other children, Claudia.
February 2000	Ramona is trying very hard. She loves colouring, drawing and music.
May 2000	Ramona's parents turned up a little while ago, and wanted her back. She refused to go. There has been no contact since. She was very unsettled for a while, but is happier now. She is due to begin school in the village in September.

April 2001	The children have now moved to Casa Sfintul Nicolae (St Nicholas' House) and are much happier. There is plenty of room inside the house and lots of land. The have started to clean up the garden and have already planted onions and will be planting potatoes this week. We now have to raise the money to build a decent sized barn and pigsty as well as a chicken coop. We will then have to stock it with livestock - a cow, two pigs, geese, turkeys and hens. Ramona has learned to read and is very proud of her achievement. She helps around the house and is excited about having land to work on. She is growing into a very attractive young lady and has become a lot more confident since leaving the orphanage. I hope that we can get the children to the village school for the beginning of the next academic year. In the meantime the teacher goes in every day and they all look forward to their lessons.
		Ramona's first bike ride


	The White Cross Mission is a charity that was set up after the death of Nicolae Ceaucescu in 1990 in response to the discovery of over 120,000 children living in grim institutions throughout Romania. The majority of those children are still living in those institutions and, despite a far more open regime, more children are being added to those numbers daily.
Ramona, Liz and Claudia