Village of Berceni 

Berceni is a community made up of five villages (Berceni, Corlatesti, Catunu, Moara Noua and Dambu) about an hour’s drive north of Bucharest.

After the 1989 anti-communist revolution, the petrochemical industry in the area fired most of its employees. The lack of new opportunities left many people unemployed and caused an enormous increase in the number of Berceni people living below the poverty line.

Today, many of its approximately 6500 citizens live in difficult circumstances. More than 170 Berceni families depend on a state allowance that ranges from 96 RON/ 28 €/ $ 37 a month for a retired person to 350 RON/ 104 € / $ 138 a month for a family with seven children. Even more families have to make do with the small income of one breadwinner.

Most of these families live in one-bedroom houses with no running water or electricity and an outhouse. There is no money for clothes or shoes even when temperatures in winter drop to – 20° C. There is, in fact, often not enough money to buy food for the family.