Children’s stories
Alexandru is 23 years old and has spent his last 15 years with us. Neither his mental disability, nor his hearing impairment stop him from taking part in countless activities at the Motivation Day Center. He enjoys drawing, modelling and is always the first to offer a helping hand when anyone needs it.
Alex is sociable and needs a lot of attention and affection. Because he is so full of life, he enjoys outdoor activities that give him the chance to discover the world. He also likes sports – basketball being his favorite. He stays active because he is one of the main helpers in the house he lives in, as well as in the carpentry workshop, so he is delighted to work under our colleagues’ guidance.
Mihaela is 31 years old and has been part of the Motivation family since 2004. She’s passionate about gymnastics, ice skating and enjoys listening the life stories of the people around her, so she’s very knowledgeable about our colleagues’ families and about famous people.
She likes working in the tailoring workshop and knitting. When she is at the Motivation Day Center, she is often found completing puzzles with thousands of pieces, which we use to decorate the houses our youngsters live in. She is almost independent when it comes to housework. She has her own rhythm and her own way to do it, which is why she doesn’t like change.
Dani is 22 years old and has become a grown up under our eyes. He is a very good friend and colleague. He is very orderly and thoughtful – always saves money to buy what he needs, but also to indulge in his own pleasures.
Dani knows rules and regulations very well, respects them and even informs others about them. He works in both of Motivation’s tailoring and carpentry workshops. He’s meticulous, resourceful, he likes to work and enjoys sports and listening to music. In the future, he wants to have his own family and to be independent.
Cristian or Kiki, as we call him, is 19 years old and has been living with Motivation since he was 4 years old. In order to overcome the emotional disturbances caused by his life in an orphanage , Cristian was placed into an adaptive recovery program and change was fast to come.
Now, Kiki is passionate about fashion and gives a lot of attention to how he dresses. More than that, he advises his colleagues when it comes to the right way to dress up based on each event. His dream is to create his own clothing line. In his occupational therapy classes, he draws up dresses and accessories, which he tries to bring to life in our tailoring workshop. He spends his free time watching cartoons and movies.
Călin is 22 years old and is born on August 15th. He is sociable, talented and has a very broad sense of humor, which is useful for making friends easily and being in the spotlight. He is always the star of the Motivation Day Center when it comes to the plays and dance activities that we stage.
Calin grew up with us and we enjoyed seeing him succeed along the way. All of this helped him become independent: he was able to write after going through an operation, he performs various activities in our carpentry workshop, goes grocery shopping by himself and, with a little help, even cooks. He’s passionate about sports and therefore is very enthusiastic to take part in the events that we have organized together with our friends from Special Olympics Romania. His dream is to travel and be free, as he’s not a big fan of rules.
In the special psychopedagogy office at the Motivation Day Center, Costel does exercises to help him with his cognitive development – he sorts out objects, learns to recognize spatial positions and identifies elements of the body scheme. All of this is done under the guidance of our colleagues. They also helped him learn how to ask what he wants for, in various ingenious ways, to compensate for the lack of spoken language.
Costel is funny, always in search of new stimuli and is attached to the people with which he stays in contact regularly. He is always good with house work – he can make the bed, dust off, takes care of laundry and is always happy to help and to receive praise. He is an “eager collector” of items made from plastic, which he asks for in new and unique ways, always raising the spirits in the house. Even now, at 31 years old, Costel is famous for his passion for … sweet breads!
At 24 years old, Cătălin is a passionate athlete and enthusiastic hiker. He wants to walk, to run as much as possible, but even so, having a routine is still one of the things that comfort him most.
He takes part in therapy sessions where he learns how to interact with others, does exercises that help him develop his spatial awareness ability, recognizes animals and common household items. His favorite games are puzzle based ones. He’s very attached to our colleagues in the IMPACT program and he dances, listens to music and enjoys mime shows with them. Catalin, known for his sweet tooth, knows how to use his puppy eyes to get candy and sweets for his stash. His favorite time of the year is Christmas. He can hardly wait for the first Santa Claus commercials, so he can mimic his laugh.
George is 31 years old and is a happy young man, with amazing enthusiasm . He is in a wheelchair, which he likes to use to dance while humming his favorite songs. He’s sociable and loves outdoor parties, filled with barbeques and joy. His favorite season is summer, when he can go to the camp at Varatec and can play ball games.
A serious hard worker , one of his other favorite activities is physical therapy. Guided by our colleagues from the IMPACT program, he exercises in order to improve his mobility. He also takes part in multisensory stimulation sessions, where sounds and movement are combined, and objects are identified through shape or texture. Even though he lost his parents a long time ago, George still has many memories of them from his childhood and shares them with the staff and friends from the house, who have become his family.
Mădălina turns 27 this year and is a joyous young woman, who always manages to entertain everyone with her unmatched talent for pranks. She likes jewelry, beautiful clothes, to always look her best and have everyone’s eyes on her.
Madalina takes part in psychology counseling sessions, where she learns about behavior, feelings and how to adapt to everyday challenges. She prefers the company of the girls from the tailoring workshop and those from occupational therapy, who help her make decorative objects, sew and prepare for when she will get a job. The Motivation Day Center’s speech therapist helps her improve her speech and enrich her vocabulary.
Madalina wishes for independence, so she’s slowly learning how to cook, clean and organize her clothes in the dresser. The best days for her are the ones in which she can be part of group activities.
Anca is 29 years old, loves music and dancing, her dream being to go to one of Andra’s concerts with her closest friends and visit the backstage. She’s always up to date with the latest celebrity news. Anca has an artistic side, which she explores every time she has the chance.
In our occupational therapy workshop, she paints, tries her skills at tailoring and creates hand-made accessories out of Fimo and textile materials. Sensitive and emotional, Ancuta learns how to manage her emotions, to accept herself, to love and enjoy every day even if it’s not a sunny one. She wanted and was able to learn how to be independent – she’s a born cook and can make an amazing salad and gets her clothes ready, being naturally stylish.
She likes being surrounded by friends and volunteers, whom she always wins over with an amazing smile and a personality to match it.
Marius or Yuki, as it’s his spoiled nickname, is 30 years old and has been living at Motivation since 2004. He’s always ready to greet us with a huge smile on his face and has an amazing talent in overcoming the challenges that come along with his speech and movement disabilities. He learned how to attract attention so he can claim the sweet reward he deserves and get the TV turned on to his favorite music channels.He is a happy young man, full of energy, who can always perform simple playful activities.
In his physical therapy sessions, Marius has successfully learned to perform short playful motions. These help him improve both his fine and gross motor skills. Our colleagues always offer him help to understand and maintain proper wheelchair posture.
Florin is one of the representatives of Motivation’s house in Clinceni, always full of joy and constantly wishing to improve. He’s an ambitious 28 years old young man who doesn’t let his progressive health issues defeat him.
He is always willing to learn, try out new experiences and to be in the spotlight. He manages to overcome his limits with the help of physical therapy, learning new exercises and fighting to keep his mobility. A childhood accident affected his ability to verbally express himself, so Florin performs complicated speech therapy exercises to improve his communication skills. He shares his memories and talks about his hopes and dreams. He’s one of the most active participants in the carpentry workshop, and enjoys finding out how to build furniture out of disparate pieces of wood.
Full of affection and energy, he takes part in all of the group activities organized by us. He likes board games, especially if they include funny punishments for those who lose, and he easily makes friends with the other young people. He loves travelling, and camps at Varatec and the seaside. These are his favorite experiences, that he always talks about during long winter nights.
Although she doesn’t speak, Narghita has learned how to ask for what she wants and express her emotional state. We’re fascinated by the patience she shows for simple games using interlocks, balls or puzzles, or how she always takes her time placing each piece where she wants it to go. She does not like changes and is always quick to notice them. She often indicates the order in which certain items were placed and even reorganizes things in the room to her liking.
At the Motivation Day Center, Narghita is learning practical things, like the relationship between cause and effect, as well as special orientation and how to recognize day to day objects and events. Over time, she’s been involved in therapy based on developing non-verbal communication, during which she was encouraged to express herself and interact with others in a gentle way (gentle teaching).
When she got with us at Motivation, Cristina’s mobility was so poor that she could not even move. Besides that, she couldn’t eat solid food and didn’t know how to express her needs or to ask for help. With the help of our colleagues who worked with Cristina, she was able to learn how to walk, learned how to consume more solid food and knows now how to get what she likes for herself. Here she discovered her passion for music, the ideal reward for any of her accomplishments.
She’s always under the protection of the two brothers, Daniel and Cristian, who also arrived at Motivation from an orphanage. They see her as a younger sister, though she is the oldest among them.
Nowadays, Cristina takes part in weekly speech therapy sessions to help with her non-verbal communication abilities, as well as a multisensory stimulation program. She is part of short games, to help improve her social skills. Physical therapy exercises and relaxing while listening to music are her favorite activities.
Florin is 28 years old and has been living with Motivation for 16 years. He likes knowing a bit of something about everyone he meets. He has a few favorite questions: “What subway station do you get off at?”, “What pajamas do you wear?”, “When is your birthday?”.
He likes candy and food magazines. He needs routine and a schedule he knows beforehand. He’s joyful and can easily find great metaphors to describe the people around him.
Suffering from one of the worst kind of disabilities, deaf-blindness, Ciprian is a winner. Ciprian learned how to be independent while using only his sense of touch and smell. At 31 years of age, he is still fighting to keep his spatial awareness and his personal autonomy, which he can do with the help of the staff with whom he shares a special connection. He recognizes people based on their perfume, the texture of their skin, a type of food or a specific drink, and he lets them know his preferences about one or the other, being easily understood by those with whom he interacts.
He enjoys exercises involving kinetic sand and heat stimuli of varying temperatures. Though his health is in a fragile state, he always has a smile ready and is affectionate with everyone.
Ionuț is 23 years old and he’s the young man teaching us how to overcome our limits every day. He is passionate about sports, the Chinese culture, documentaries about the evolution of Earth, the Solar System, meteorites. He is like a living and breathing encyclopedia when it comes to dinosaurs.
Abandoned early in his life, with a sad family history, he learned a lot about friendship, the importance of affection and respect at the Motivation Foundation. Ionut received counselling to help him get over his abandonment trauma and also to improve his verbal language skills. He has successfully finished a development program teaching him how to live an independent life.
Ionut is the “pillar of the house”, whom you can rely on to perform “manly duties”, as he likes calling them. Cleaning the yard and moving large objects are his responsibilities. He helps our colleagues assemble and deliver wheelchairs daily and is proud to be able to give other people a helping hand.
Gabriel is 19. He always greets us with a smile that lights up the room. He’s a survivor fighting with complex health issues. He was operated for hydrocephalus and suffered a stroke that has irreversibly affected his physical and mental development, but he is filled with positivity and affection.
Gabi has been involved in complex therapy programs in order to improve his health, develop his motor skills and help with multisensory stimuli. He prefers to be in the physical therapy room where exercise and constant attention help him maintain proper posture in his wheelchair, as well as keep his fine motor skills. During multisensory stimuli therapy sessions, he always chooses activities involving the change in intensity of visual, tactile and heat stimuli.
Leo is 25 and has been living with us at Motivation for 17 years. Here he found the safety and affection he needed to adapt to the consequences of his disability and to overcome the limits imposed by it.
Leo needs a daily routine, based on activities he is familiar with and the help of reference staff that understands his needs and can help him. He’s involved in a variety of therapeutic activities, especially those focusing on the development of his non-verbal communication skills and stimulating his cognitive development.
He leans towards activities and games that don’t require being part of large groups. He likes popular music, which he follows with interest and puts him a good mood. He enjoys going to the camp at Varatec the most, where he has the chance to enjoy his favorite outdoor activities.
Bety has been living with Motivation since 2004. Her disability imposes a series of limits when it comes to communication and movement that she faces with courage and the support of the reference staff from the Cornetu house. She was able to find a way to non-verbally communicate her needs and feels safe with the people she knows and who understand her daily needs.
She’s part of the yearly camps organized by us at Varatec. This is one of her favorite places, where she can spend time in nature with other young people, take part in fun games and especially spoil herself with delicious treats prepared by our colleagues.
Aurel is 32 and has spent the last 17 years of his life at the Romania Motivation Foundation, being the oldest of our youngsters and an example of courage and fighting daily.
Aurel learned to compensate his motor and communication difficulties, managing to make himself understood by those who know him and support him every day. He is able to maintain a positive attitude and is always ready to smile and laugh with those he is emotionally close with.
He enjoys the activities performed in the physical therapy room. His joy is visible during every session – he has the biggest smile you will ever see. His happiness can also be seen in the way he drives his wheelchair towards the room, where he undergoes a set of exercises meant to improve his bodily posture and his wheelchair driving abilities.
He enjoys taking outdoor walks and engaging in activities with lots of people, is picky when it comes to food and always asks for sweets.
If you are at the Day Center and hear the name Laur (22 years old), the first thing that comes to mind is the computer and its components, these being his biggest passion.
Laur graduated the School of Arts and Crafts No. 2 and is presently working in the tailoring and carpentry shops that are part of the Foundation. He is also a sports medalist, a key member of the team that takes part in all competitions organized by the Special Olympics Foundation each year. Here he has the chance to show his talent in sports, but also his ability to be in the center of attention. Laur prefers cooking and cleaning. During his free time, his number one activity is visiting malls, where he gets up to speed with news in the field of IT, and can test and compare anything new.
His history is filled with negative experiences which is why he needs an especially stable environment, characterized by safety, where he can find both the support and attention that he needs in order to overcome the trauma caused by being abandoned.
Marian is 28 years old and has been in our care since she was 9. His dream is to have a family – a wife and a child.
He craves affection and is generous with hugging others – whether they are new friends or colleagues from the group home. He is friendly and protective. He would like to get his driver’s license and move into his own house. He participates in adapted sports events and is proud of the medals he receives.
Marian is handy – he works in the carpentry shop, lends a hand when it comes to cleaning up the garden at the Motivation camp, in the spring, and also cooks.
Florin is 25 years old and has been under the care of the Motivation Romania Foundation since 2004, where he has benefited from a stable environment, allowing him a favorable evolution from both a psychological and emotional perspective.
Florin has been taking part in a variety of therapeutic activities, especially those focusing on his nonverbal communication skills, that stimulate his cognitive development and learning independent life skills that allowed him to form his personal autonomy and improved his emotional state. He likes activities and games based on music and dance, and is in a positive emotional state, characterized through joy and affection. Florin is a young man who feels best in large groups of people who are all exclusively focusing on him.
His favorite time of the year is when the camp at Varatec takes place, where he has the chance to see tractors and lots of animals he recognizes and can follow them with great focus.
Having been part of the Motivation Romania Foundation’s programs since 2003, Patrik, as everyone calls him, is one of our “veterans”, who learned what it means to feel accepted and live in a stable and affectionate environment from the reference staff.
Petre is 28 years old. He is a young man diagnosed with residual schizophrenia, a severe psychological retard, which meant being involved in therapy programs meant to allow him to regain his personal autonomy and developing his skills to express his needs.
The associated disability with which he’s been diagnosed imposes a series of limits when it comes to communicating, which he’s working on overcoming with the help of the reference staff, where he found the perfect environment to learn, communicate nonverbally and feel safe, being surrounded by people who understand his needs on a daily basis.
