By MAGGIE I. JARUZEL
In previous years, floods have destroyed hundreds of houses in the Southeastern European country of Romania. But many people say this year's floods in late July were even worse.
"In 2005, many houses were damaged or destroyed, but now entire villages have been affected and entire villages need to be relocated," says Lorena Stoica, director of the Carpathian Foundation-Romania (CFR).
"It will take much longer to bounce back this time because lots of people have to move due to the huge amounts of mud and the extremely high water levels. Right now, nobody knows where they can move these villages to."
CFR is an independent foundation that belongs to a network of regional foundations coordinated by the Carpathian Foundation International (CFI), which is a Mott grantee based in Eger, Hungary. In addition to Hungary and Romania, independent foundations in the network also operate in the rural areas of the Carpathian mountains in Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine.
Washed-out roads made it difficult for more experienced organizations, such as the Red Cross, as well as for local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to reach affected villages. Both did their best to respond immediately, Stoica says.
Those NGOs located in or near the seven rural counties that suffered the most damage were dealing with their own losses, including ruined records and documents. Still, she said, they distributed emergency supplies -- bottled water, food and blankets -- to nearby residents "who were disconnected from the rest of the world."
Several positive outcomes have happened because of the floods, Stoica says. But there is now an urgent need and increased opportunities for Romanian NGOs and funders to coordinate their efforts to reduce duplication and prevent gaps in service.
Two of CFR's national funding partners are the Princess Margarita of Romania Foundation and the Romanian Environmental Partnership Foundation. Both are Mott grantees.
Additionally, CFR and other members of the Romanian Donors' Forum (also a Mott grantee), are exploring ways to do relief work with their funding peers in Ukraine. According to regional media reports, flooding in northern and northeastern Romania was its worst in decades; the same storms caused flooding in southwestern Ukraine that had not been seen in nearly a century.
The flooding has created new concerns in both countries, Stoica says. She cites a shortage of clean drinking water, massive crop losses, and worries about diseases resulting from the hundreds of animal carcasses floating in the rivers.
Still, during natural disasters people can usually point to pockets of human kindness, Stoica says, and that has been true in Romania. For example, people living in unaffected areas have been generously phoning or text-messaging pledges of financial support.
CFR plans to provide its own support in two ways. The foundation is paying transportation costs to move basic supplies to regions in need, Stoica says. Meanwhile, younger staff members are collecting age-appropriate items -- clothes, books, and compact discs -- to give to young people who have lost everything.
For Stoica and others at CFR, collecting and donating supplies is necessary, but it often feels like "only a drop of water in the ocean." Consequently, CFR's second strategy is to help address ongoing needs by "adopting" one flooded village in each of three counties where it has made grants in the past.
By partnering with community leaders in each area, Stoica says, the foundation can help develop an integrated approach to rebuilding villages. This could mean having teachers, local government officials and residents jointly decide upon local priorities, such as which comes first -- repairing the school or the roads.
"When we learned that the flooding had affected regions where we had invested -- with money, time and energy in the past -- we wanted to make a long-lasting commitment. We wanted to build on those previous investments."