Suits on Bikes is now focusing its support on one project in Jimbolia. Talita Kum was a project set up six years ago to try and keep socially disadvantaged Romanian children in school by providing them with an after school programme which compensated for many of the basic necessities they were missing in their home lives. Typically attendees are children from families where 4-5 children live in one or two dilapidated rooms; a mother struggling to bring up 4 children (one of them being paralyzed) and sharing half of a small Council house with her own mother and sister (the latter with two children as well); a single and mentally imbalanced mother of a nine year old boy, who also has a son in a special school, one daughter in a home, and another adopted in Denmark.

The children often have serious learning difficulties and it is therefore necessary to work with them on a one-to-one basis. More fundamental is the need to feed the children and to begin to instill basic social skills and to help them learn about personal hygiene and elementary communal interaction. The children can stay in the programme until they are nine after which there is another year where they visit on Fridays. The definition of success is keeping them in education for two years after this. Under the inspirational leadership of the current director Adrian Popa the project is now completely self financing from donations such as ours and a growing level of commercial revenues from small ventures which the centre has established alongside its social activity (building and retail activities).

Whilst maintaining this very successful existing programme, Suits on Bikes has now developed plans with Adrian Popa and his team to build and establish a middle school to provide similar support for children for another four years.
Assuming that this too can be made self-funding we would then seek a senior after-school programme followed by a young adult programme to teach artisan skills needed in the community and, where appropriate, to allow some gifted children scholarships and support to continue their education.
To achieve this aim it is estimated that Suits on Bikes needs to raise approx 100K EUR a year for at least the next five years (assuming that stage by stage the projects can gradually be made self funding). These funds will be used both for the initial investment in the buildings as well as the day to day running costs of the centre