Journalism Project in Memory of Oana Livadariu (1980-2015)

Oana Livadariu, OvidiuRo’s beloved PR specialist and a gifted and respected journalist, died of brain cancer at the age of 34 in 2015. Oana was a passionate advocate – and practitioner – of using the media to shine a light on the wide disparity between urban progress and rural decline in Romania.

In her honor, OvidiuRo awarded 20 fellowships in 2015 and 2016 to encourage young journalists to document Romania’s rural, largely invisible poverty, that keeps far too many children undernourished, uneducated, and without hope for a better future.

These stories – of a village in transformation; of the huge role that chance plays in poor people’s lives; the importance of role models – both good and bad; and the long-term game-changing effects social programs can have when they reach strong, tenacious people – all provide a snapshot of both the hardship and the personal heroism to be found in abundance in rural Romania.

Between 2015 and 2016, The Alex Fund sponsored nineteen writer-photographer teams: