As many of you know, I have been working with many of these youngsters for 23 years now, during which RAP Foundation has helped provide opportunities and education for vulnerable young people from various institutional centres ("orphanges") in Romania and their carers.

In 1997 we ran the first RAP 'Summer Holiday' project, taking 7 disabled youngsters to Scotland, funded by a Scottish high school.  Since then, we have organised annual summer holidays for more and more young people at the Romanian Black Sea coast.  This year we will be taking 45 young disabled people and 11 of their care staff to Navordari for one week to enjoy life for a few days outside of an institution.

The Summer Holiday gives these youngsters:

- the chance to feel like a normal person for a week

- the chance to feel the sand and sea water between their toes - for many this is a "first"

- positive memories for the rest of the year

- a wealth of new experiences, including some of the small things we take for granted in our every day lives such as dressing up for dinner or visiting the hairdresser

- identity and hope.

Furthermore, the holiday helps break down stereotypes amongst both the public and the youngsters' carers and helps create a positive image of this marginalised group and their potential.

These young people are so special.  They want to grab every opportunity with a passion. We want to thank you for taking an interest in them and they thank you for giving them a tomorrow.

This year's Summer Holiday will take place from the 25th to the 31st of August.  We would be really pleased with whatever donation you can afford to give - it will be MUCH appreciated. And every £/€/lei raised here will go directly to the Summer Holiday to pay for the excursions and activities which make the holiday extra special for the disabled youngsters.

All the RAP staff on this trip are unpaid volunteers and cover their own expenses to join this project.

If you'd like to find out more about the RAP Foundation please visit our website at www.rapfoundation.com. RAP Foundation is a fully registered charity in both the UK and Romania.

For more photos and details of last year's Summer Holiday, see here.

One of our recent volunteers shares his experiences...

"In 2011 I was priviledged to be part of a team of UK RAP volunteers going out to Romania to take a group of 34 orphans on a holiday from their orphanage in Bucharest to a beach resort on Romania's Black Sea coast.

To say it was a life changing event is an understatement. My 'normal' work is a whole universe away from the help I was able to give for these 8 days, and I came away with the feeling that I had got more from the trip than I had given to the youngsters I was there to help.

I returned for my second trip in August 2012, this time taking 45 orphans on the holiday. I suppose I was expecting to be more of a seasoned helper this time. In some respects I was, I knew many of the faces, and they knew me. I knew the activities we would be getting up to and where we would be going with these 'youngsters'.

However, there were a few things which threw me. The sheer joy on the faces of meeting their 'old RAP friends' and the changes in some of the orphans, some for the better, and some for the worse was overwhelming. Whilst I'd spent the previous 12 months doing all sorts of things and going all sorts of places, the things we take for granted, these guys had spent all their time looking at the same 4 walls day in and day out, with little to look forward to other than the fact that they might get the chance to go on this trip. It struck me just how important some new faces coming in and taking them away for a week is.

Perhaps the biggest impact on me this time was with a group of 4 adults we took from another orphanage who hadn't been on any trip before. I cannot give full details here, but if I can ask you to imagine Ardiana's story you will get some idea of the roller coaster of emotions I felt. Adriana is a forty year old physically disabled lady, mentally she is as sharp as a pin but she finds it difficult to speak (Romanian, never mind English) and, without a wheelchair (which are like hen's teeth in Romania), her only motability is to shuffle round on the floor. She has spent her entire life in the confines of the orphanage and everything she did on the holiday was a new life experience. She had never seen the sea or sand before, not to mention the bus that took us there or the hotel we stayed in. I was priviledged to be one of the RAP volunteers who helped her 'walk' to the beach, touch her toes in the sand and then in the sea. You can imagine how she felt, I can't put into words how it made me feel. I've put a couple of pics of Adriana on here. Look at the one smelling the rose, I was pushing her through a garden and she motioned me towards it. I took the pic not thinking too much about it at the time. When I found out later that she had never done that before, it put an entirely different meaning to the image and I can't look at it without getting a lump in my throat.

The work RAP does is utterly invaluable to helping the well being and quality of life experienced by these children, young (and older) adults, the great majority of them being put in that position through no fault of their own."

Jim Main, Dumfries (Scotland)

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