For those unfamiliar, we are in need of your help to turn the fortunes around of a local mental hospital, containing 150 forgotten patients. The name of the group is Angels of Mai. Conditions are beyond description and include no hot showers, insufficient bed clothes, urine soaked mattresses minimal food, funding is negligible & visitor count is, well, one hand contains enough fingers for 2012.
How you can help: there are 24 rooms. Each containing 6-8 patients, ranging from simply being old, to being retarded, to severe physical or mental illness. None are dangerous & all are in their own way, lovely people. So far, the list below shows which rooms have a lead figure or figures, to promise to visit twice per year at least. Not a big ask. Even if you bring treats for the patients on a given room, it costs only 10 euros.
Ways of helping: the Patron’s of each room, as they are called have helped in a range of ways. Some expensive, some cheap. Ie, painting their room, providing for the first time, a radio!, or wall cupboards so the inmates can store their person effects rather than hide them under a mattress. You can either become Patron of a room (meaning simply that you at least visit your chosen room twice per year), join an existing Patron to help them really improve their room’s conditions and visit it’s patients, or simply donate money, clothes & blankets.
Quick update Nov 22 2012: we want to find up to 24 people/ groups of people to take responsibility for a room/ rooms at the hospital, just to promise to visit twice a year & say hello, as a minimum. So far, from 24 rooms, we have Patrons as follows:
- Steve Marsh – room 1, name White Hope
- Dan Popa & team – room 2, name tbc
- Caty Gugiuana – room 3, name tbc
- Magda Bancila – room 9, name Flori de Mina
- Coldwell Banker – room 13, name Light Room
- Camelia Bayer – room 7 & 8, names Barney & Fred
- The WMP team – room 10 & 11, names Flori de Mai & Merlin
- Alexandra Mita – - room 12, name Smiles
- Anamaria Loghin – room 14, name Speranta
We still need patrons for rooms 4,5,6,15,16, 17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24 which all contain patients with no one to care for them, visit them, bring them flowers once a year and so on.
If you want to get involved, get in touch. Let’s work together to sort this out. Its not in the least bit hard work, but it is extremely rewarding & of course, badly needed.
Drop me a line at info@whitemountain.ro
Thank you
Damian Galvin
