Change Their Story! Send CARTE by SMS to 8844

OvidiuRo calls for involvement to provide books and access to education for preschool children in disadvantaged areas

(Bucharest, September 14th, 2020) – OvidiuRo launches the “Change Their Story!” Campaign, in order to emphasize the importance of access to a quality early education for all children and to ensure the necessary funds to offer books to preschool children.

In the new reality created by the COVID-19 pandemic, children living in disadvantaged communities did not have access to kindergarten and online school, so the educational gap widened and the chances of dropping out of school increased. In addition, children from poor families have no books at home at all, and in kindergartens, in disadvantaged areas, there are often only colouring books, which creates a major impediment of their readiness to attend school.

In Romania there are, according to data provided by the NSI, approximately 600.000 preschool children (3-5 years) and 35.000 educators. About 83% of children are enrolled in kindergadten. This percentage is 10% lower in rural areas than in urban areas. But the major problem remains the extremely low daily presence of these children in kindergarden.

Unfortunately, the early school leaving rate in our country remains at one of the highest levels in Europe, at 18.1%, while in rural areas it reaches even 26.6%, compared to 10.6% the European average in 2018, due to poverty and the low degree of education the parents have.

“A book can change the story of a poor child. Those who do not interact in the first years of life with stories encounter difficulties in learning to read and write and, often, even end up dropping out of school. I knew from the beginning that we have embarked on a long journey, but necessary for children living in poverty: to change their story and life, through education“, says Maria Gheorghiu, co-founder of OvidiuRo.

Through the message of the “Change their story” campaign, OvidiuRo appeals to all those who can get involved and want to support the preschool education of a poor child – to send an SMS (recurrent, worth 2 EUR / month) , at 8844 with the text CARTE. Each SMS sent is a book that will be given to a poor child. Most of the time, it will be his first book. It will be the beginning of a new story, maybe it will be the page turned to a better future.

The campaign is launched at the American Independent Film Festival (AIFF), which takes place between 14th and 20th of September, in Bucharest. Inspired by the thematic courage and the social load of independent American films, the Festival donates, through the Cinemascop Association, all the proceeds from watching films from the National Museum of Art of Romania – Court of Honor, Peasant Museum Cinema and Mercato Kultur to OvidiuRo, to support this campaign. Tickets have been put on sale on the Eventbook.ro platform and can be purchased at locations, before screenings, and the full program can be found on the website filmedefestival.ro in the Program section.