Just 18km outside of the city of Cluj-Napoca are a large number of poor families, many of them living in unfinished concrete block or wooden houses with poor insulation and badly fitting doors and windows. Unemployment is extremely high and many of these people only earn occasional money seasonally by working the fields or by collecting mushrooms from the forest to sell back in the villages. Some of them have the opportunity to go and work for a month or two in a foreign country, usually picking, for example, fruit and vegetables. Unless they are disabled, there are no state benefits for unemployment and so many families live hand to mouth all the year round.
There is no National Health service in Romania and everything has to be paid for. Naturally, people neglect their healthcare as they have to prioritise the little money they have on food and paying utility bills. With the support of MMN and others, Tim and Jenny Gooding have been able to support a number of people over the years with medical assistance for operations or treatment to remedy their health problems.
