Bolton College inspires Romanian visitors
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Thursday, members of FAST – a Romanian charity that works with families from marginalised Roma communities in Brasov County – took a tour of Bolton College’s Construction Block during the fourth day of their visit to the vocational college.
Since European funding was secured, the charity has been working with Bolton College to send 24 people in education and/or on benefits to Romania to volunteer for the FAST charity. Great strides have already been made: some villagers now have basic homes and a school has been established where there is now a degree of integration between Romanian and Roma children.
The next step in improving the quality of the lives of the Roma people and enabling them to integrate fully into Romanian society is the establishment of a vocational college in Sacele. This next step was the reason behind the charity’s fact-finding mission last week – to see what a vocational college looks like and what is needed to equip and run a curriculum.
Daniel Hristea, Co-Founder of FAST Charity, said: “It couldn’t be more timely for us to have started this work with Bolton College, as we now have the opportunity to develop our own vocational centre in Sacele. The visit to the College will help us to envisage what our centre could be. We look forward to working with the College over many years in our joint ambition to improve opportunities for the people in our communities.”
The tour of the Construction Centre was of particular importance during the charity’s visit because the work that the College is doing, in partnership with Bolton at Home and Forrest Construction, is directly related to the construction of the buildings in Brasov.
Twenty-four construction students from Bolton College went out to Brasov county last April to help build homes within the Roma community, and now, thanks to Bolton at Home and Forrest Construction, one of the villages has a water main which provides clean drinking water, so that the families are not forced to drink from a river shared with animals.
Marie Gilluley, Principal and Chief Executive of Bolton College, said: “I was delighted to welcome our visitors from the FAST Charity to Bolton College. Our learners gained immensely last year from sharing their skills in the Roma community and developing an understanding of life for the Roma people, and the experience prompted the College to adopt FAST as its international Charity.
“The visitors looked around different curriculum areas in the College, along with visits to Forrest Construction and Bolton at Home. Our learners are currently busy organising fundraising activities to support the building of the college and another volunteering project will take place in September.”