We are committed Christians who on Humanitarian Aid trips to Romania in the 1990s saw the terrible need of the children, and moved to Romania in 2000 with a dream, our love of, and desire to follow Jesus. We have devoted all our time since to our work with sick, dying and disadvantaged children.
The seeds of Love Light Romania were sown in the mid 90’s when founders Jo and Ron Jowett started to travel to Cernavoda in Romania. They would bring over equipment and aid that was needed at the orphanage that they were visiting.
After travelling to Romania numerous times both Jo and Ron decide that they could achieve more if they actually moved to Romania and started their own NGO there. So, they sold and left everything in the UK and made the leap to Romania.
The story of how they chose the village that they settled in and all their experiences in the beginning are wonderful, but unfortunately, we don’t have enough space here. One thing that they did feel is that they were guided by God and everything that they have achieved since then is in service to Him.
It was the year 2000 when Ron and Jo moved to Romania. Then 1 year later they had all the paperwork resolved so that Asociatia Love Light Romania was born, the 17th August 2001. In the beginning they would work with children form a local hospital that were HIV positive, the services offered were respite care at their home in Ighisu-nou, end of life care, holidays, clothes, day trips, and so much more. Just so you can have an image in your head, they lived in is a small village in a country only 10 years out of a communist regime. Then you have these crazy English people walking down the street with dogs, donkey, sheep and children, sometimes the dogs would walk along leading the donkey. But everybody was happy, loved and felt free.
After this Love Light Romania brought a house in 2003 and renovated it into a placement centre for the remaining children from the hospital in our local town of Medias. In 2005 we had a team of builders from Wales come out and built a huge extension on the house, this meant that we could offer support and a home to many more people in need. After this we became a residential home for people with disabilities with an emphasis on HIV. In 2010 we started working in the village of Jacodu, here we began our Jacodu children’s project. Over the years we have helped children from poor families get to and not abandon school. We have offered a place to work for young adults, though our second-hand shop and agricultural program. In 2012 we renovated a building to be a purpose built after school centre. And every year we have grown and expanded our agricultural projects.