Now I can, I want and I will :)

Knowledge Collection People & Projects
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When someone ask you who you are you can answer so many things: you can say your name, you can say your job title tied right next to it, you can say you’re someone’s daughter and so many other things but none of them will actually show who you are. You simply are not just that. So …Who am I? I am so many things but this is what I’d like to share about myself:

I grew up in a village and that was for me the perfect environment to build myself up. In this village everybody knows everybody, you say hi when you meet people on the street, no matter if you talked before or not, you have to be polite and do good things cause in a way or another if you don’t, you will feel the social pressure. It is a safe environment where one feels protected.

My parents sent me to boarding school when I was 10 years old in the city near by because they wanted me to attend a good and prestigious school. I started from then to decide things for myself and to assume responsibility for my actions. My parents supported me though, when I needed and they could. I attended a class specialized in mathematics but when I had to decide about high school I chose to attend the Pedagogical one that at it’s end made me qualified to work as a pre-school, primary and English teacher for children. I learned a lot of theory mostly due to the charged curricula in our country and I did 2 years of practice. Still at practice all we did was teach our lesson and get out of the classroom and as a teacher you do so much more then that. I started then to volunteer for a foundation to learn what I felt was missing in my professional development but also I had to fulfill my need to be useful for someone else then myself.

I volunteered 3 years for children with muscular dystrophy and worked with them in their emotional recovery (for they were abandoned) and also joined in organizing the foundation events. And this motivated me to be more active: I started ball-room dancing, drawing classes and English courses all at the same time.

When I graduated high school at 18 years old I took a contest for a pre-school teacher job. I got it and then I had to see how I was going to do both job and college studies. And I did great I was good as a pre-school teacher and I graduated top of my class my bachelor studies. I continued my job and started a MBA program that I am graduating this year.

My job as a pre-school teacher did not gave me the opportunity to value at a true level my knowledge acquired as a top graduate so I gladly said yes to a proposal for being an educational junior researcher. The offer was part-time until my contract at kindergarten expired when I was to become full-time employer. So in November this year I found myself doing two MBA programs and two jobs at once … and I still did great. I had straight A’s at one MBA and only two B’s at the other one and handled my jobs very well. I had so less sleep time but I was happy to be good at what I was involved in. When my contract at kindergarten expired my principal offered me the possibility to stay more. The deal with the others was that I would not stay anymore so I left what I did for 4 years an a half and become a full-time junior researcher. It was a hard thing to do.

Five months passed as part-time and I had still no papers for employment even when I crossed to full-time. Money came but no papers. Whenever I asked they circled the answer or say that they will fix it but never did. So I decided to resign. They offered me more money, the director position for one of their NGO’s and the promise to fix my 5 months delayed papers. No drop of money or positions will buy my integrity. I resigned because I lost my trust in their intentions in everything they did and a few other reasons so I went in the same day to interview for a pre-school teacher job at a private kindergarten. I was told by the interviewer in the first sentences just by looking at my resume that I was over qualified. I applied at another kindergarten and I got the job. This one is new on market and will start when it will gather the enough number of children. Till then I am doing something ….Now at 23 years old I am starting an educational NGO with experienced and enthusiastic people as partners. Two days ago I made the first legal step in developing it: I sent the name reservation to the Ministry of Justice. We are working every evening for 4-5 hours to lift it up. This one will be truly for the people, it will be fair and for myself I can guarantee that I will give 100% passion, experience and knowledge.

To be continued …

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The mirror

Integrity is what makes us be able to look at our face in the mirror every morning.

Quitting your job seems to have brough you in good company, and I wish you good luck with your new educational NGO project.

As you seem to be able to handle many things at once (2 jobs + education), although it might be hard work and demanding, it looks like this new experience will be quite fulfilling for you.

Please keep us posted about the details and let us know how it goes!

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Hi Lyne

We’ve managed to go with the papers in court but for an extra row we’ve been delayed untill the 23 th of August. Our NGO will be named Edu Dynamics and hopely we wont have any aditional delays after the 23 th of august.

I’ve managed to get a job better payed and tomorrow I have an interview for a second one for the weekend.

If I am able by september to have again two jobs and also an NGO I will be more then happy.

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plz share tips&tricks when u get through!

Seems very familiar: bureaucracy in my country is a way to create more jobs for attorneys, and ways around it are usually somehow dodgy.

What type of NGO did you choose, how do they classify in Romania? It will be cool of you can share a list of tips and tricks on starting an NGO in Romania, it can be helpful for all sorts of bureaucracies. A Bureacracy Survival Guide.

I saw that there are quite a few big international ones operating in Romania, those which are big enough to get through all that Kafka. I had a bad experience starting small NGO in Russia: not easy to get through paperwork, but as long as there is an international org helping, local government get more into milking.

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Paper and Places

Hi Ode,

this was a really interesting read. Thank you for sharing it! I’m curious what papers didn’t they want to give you and why do you feel this is important?

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Hi Nadia

The papers I wanted were the one’s that the employer makes for or with the one employed for the work to be considered legally made and paid. Although it was an institution with quite some weight and one would not expect something like this.(especially if this was discuss at the interview in the beggining). I requested for the contract, job description paper, the paper with the organizational rules, the one for labour protection and the medical paper that at least this have to be done. For all of this misssing they risk a fine that is not small at all (and still did not do them). They enrolled me without my notice in the county agency that deals with labour aspects on a larger time then we have discussed and approve and when I received at last the contract it was also different from what we discussed but also different with what the agency had. I received it in the day I left. The medical check up it is also mandatory and if you don’t have it it is a problem especially if the job required travelling in different countries. I went in 4 countries in 5 months I made additional paper of medical inssurance just to be covered when I travelled. It was important for me to have them because otherwise my work was not considered legal. I also didn’t received nothing for seeing my salary and my contributions to the state. So they could easy pay me from the pocket. They thought that if I received the money I wouldn’t care just shut up. It was a big dissapointment because the director was one of the teachers I had in college.

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Weird

I don’t get it. Why do you think they did not want to do the paperwork? What was their angle? Surely it was in everybody’s best interest to have the contractual relationship straight.

Do you know if this is a common situation in Romania? Or did you just get unlucky?

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You are not the only one. To who I told each were very surprised of this way of handling employement. My tought about they not doing the papers is related to the way cash came in the company - mostly Eu funds. In the contract you have to write the amount the employee gets. By not having a contract one can declare the employee is getting a sum that maybe he doesn’t receive in real life - so those money can go somewhere else … there are things that are not checked…When I asked in a meeting about the medical test and papers I got an answer like this: Where did you all get the idea that you have to have medical inssurance? We told her about the law and the fines and she said that she is not going to pay “out of her pocket” for our medical test. We explained about the fact that it is not from her money it is from the state money and very few from the institution not from her. The result was she got angry and she left leaving us without a conclusion. She told the accountant afterwards to check if it is so necessary to have medical inssurance but nothing else was done.

Also when a colleague resigned before me she had in her contract things related to her actions. She didn’t go to a meeting in another country because she had medical problems with her back and at the time the boss said it’s ok if she doesn’t and later on the contract it was mentioned that if one doesn’t go it will pay (it was probably the only thing she could of claimed to that girl because it was one of the most hard working I’ve met). This is just an example … there were more.

This is all I can think of. This is how far my comprehension goes.

I heard about issues when it comes to labour aspects but for waiters, people in construction field, the ones that work in agriculture not in companies with some years of experience and I was shorely not expecting this.

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Very cool indeed

Glad to see somebody moving out from under the terrible bureaucracy into running their own show. Good work!

Which country are you operating in? Where are you from?

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Hi! Thanks.  I am from Romania. I stay now in Timisoara and it is indeed a lot of bureaucracy especially in the state’s institutions. I tend to think that it is a legacy from the years of comunism when it was all centralised. :slight_smile:

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Hi Ode,

I’m from Roumania too, and just like you, I had to face bureaucracy so many times than I’m tired. I’m member of a students NGO and last year we wanted to make some changes in our legal statute, just to be able to do more activities which we are interested in…and the process would take so much time, than we gave up. I really congratulate you for having the courage to start a new NGO. I’m courious: which exactly will be the activities of your new NGO? It will operate only in Timisoara, or you intend to expand its activity also in Bucharest?

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Hi Amalia

We went today in court but for an extra row in one of the papers we were delayed untill 23 of august, when we have to bring another paper to explain that extra row. We want to make activities as: campains for informing people on certain matters, we want to organize  entrepreneur, cultural, educational, leisure, social economy activities and programs by using european, national and local funds. We want to make trainings, offer counselling regarding the proffessional and personal development, to promote good practices, offer a space for articles in educations …

We will focus on Timisoara but if we can create the possibility of course we will extend.

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Congratulations for the courage to start a new NGO…

This is not easy to do in Romania…oh, no…hope you will make it !

14

We’ve been today in court after month of paper running and we’ve been delayed until 23th of August because of an extra row in one of our papers. We are still motivated to succeed