OPENING THEIR HEARTS AND HOME TO CHILDREN

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 10, 1993                   TAG: 9301070142
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Kathy Williams
DATELINE: TIRGU MURES                                LENGTH: Medium
OPENING THEIR HEARTS AND HOME TO CHILDREN
Three months ago, 6-year-old Alex could not speak.
Tucked away in an institution for the mentally and physically handicapped, Alex spent his days staring into space, rocking back and forth.
It was the only behavior he had ever seen so Alex learned to mimic the physical and mental handicaps of the children around him.
But Alex was not handicapped. Abandoned by his parents, Alex had been put temporarily in the institution for the handicapped and then forgotten.
There, he became another of the thousands of children mixed in with the handicapped destined to be shuffled from one institution to another as he got older.
Dr. Lucie Pasca, a Romanian pediatrician, and her husband John, a biologist, were horrified when they first heard of all the children in Romanian orphanages.
"Even though I was a pediatrician in this country, I never knew there were so many children in orphanages. After the revolution, we heard. It was put on my heart to do something," Pasca said.
Pasca, 32, and her husband, 30, began visiting orphanages and other state institutions and soon realized that many non-handicapped children were mixed in with the handicapped. At one nearby institution, the Pascas said, 200 schizophrenic women, dressed like doctors and nurses, cared for children there.
Two years ago, the Pascas began fighting the government to get non-handicapped children out of the institutions for the handicapped. But the government resisted, saying Romanian children were better off warehoused and taken care of by the state.
Finally, three months ago, the Pascas were allowed to take 12 children into their home.
But with one caveat. The state would provide no money. The Pascas turned to a British relief group that helped them renovate a facility and feed and clothe the children.
Twelve children is not very many in a country where 500,000 are in orphanages, but the Pascas say they hope they can show others the right way to take care of children.
Alex peeks out from the top bunk in a room he shares at Homes of Hope with five other children. He waves happily to the visitors in his room and grins as they offer him some bubblegum.
Though Alex still looks to be only 4 or 5, a nutritious diet that includes liquid vitamins has made him grow about 5 inches in three months.
But more importantly, Alex is speaking. And laughing. And giggling. And bouncing up and down on his bunk bed with excitement. That faraway look in his big brown eyes is gone.
For the first time, Alex has a future.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB