Eurovision gives voice to Romania's loneliest youngsters

With just days to go before they perform at the Eurovision song contest, the Romanian pop-rock group Voltaj are rehearsing their hearts out.

For them, the competition is not just about representing their country but also about giving voice to thousands of children who grow up alone in Romania, with parents forced to go West to find work.

The five-member band is well established in the ex-communist state, now the European Union's second-poorest after Bulgaria, and home to some 20 million people.

Their ballad "All Over Again" draws attention to an oft-ignored flipside of European migration -- the youngsters left behind.

The problem affects "whole generations of children" who face "severe, long-term trauma" because they are forced to make it through their formative years without parents' support, Voltaj singer Calin Goia told AFP.

"I've been asked whether I think the subject matter will interest a foreign audience. And I think it will, because the topic of child-parent relationships is universal," he said.

To hit home the message, the group will sing the last refrain in English:  "If the sky clouds over, with darkness never gone/ If the sun stays hidden, not waking in the dawn/ You will be the reason, you will be the reason to start/ To start all over again."

"If I were British and had my child close to me, I'm sure I'd be able to understand how parents forced to leave their children behind might feel," Goia added.

Some 350,000 Romanian children -- almost 10 percent of the country's total child population -- have at least one parent living abroad, according to Save the Children and Alternative Sociale, another NGO.

The government puts the figure much lower at 82,339.

In neighbouring Bulgaria, 267,000 children share their lot, according to a recent study by the Partners Bulgaria foundation.

The children are cared for by grandparents or aunts and uncles, though some live in state-run households as they wait for their parents to return.

Charities that work with these youngsters warn they often feel abandoned, making them vulnerable to depression.

"My friend Gabi tells me he misses his mother a lot. The end of the school year is coming, and there is no one here (but his grandmother) to celebrate his results," nine-year-old Cornelia says.

And while Cornelia now lives with her mother, she too suffered alone for four years.

Jobless and homeless, both her parents had no choice but to emigrate. They found work in agriculture in Greece, Germany and Serbia.

- 'Mummy, mummy' - -

"Cornelia was a year and 10 months old when we left. I would hear her cry 'mummy, mummy' on the phone, and I would burst into tears," said 29-year-old Dana, who also has another daughter, now aged four.

Dana's husband is still working in Belgium, but she returned home to a village in southern Romania to raise her daughters.

They live in a house that is still under construction and whose walls have yet to be plastered and painted. The family's chickens run around inside the dining room, which has no doors or windows.

Some three million Romanians emigrated to the West in two waves. One came after the fall of communist rule under Ceausescu in 1989, the second after Romania joined the EU in 2007.

Most of the migrants work in Spain and Italy, and in 2014, they sent home 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in remittences.

Every summer, some 60 percent of the adults living in Cornelia's village go abroad for seasonal work, said Elisabeta Vieru, a social worker at World Vision Romania, a charity that helps the families.

But Vieru believes the families' difficulties can also have a positive impact.

"Parents have realised it's not so easy to make it out without an education, so they encourage their children to study hard," she said.

For Cornelia, the answer is clear. When she grows up, she wants to become a music teacher in her home country.

"I want to work in Romania, to make my mother, sister and father happy, and so that we never have to separate," she beamed.

Voltaj will perform in the May 19 semi-final of Eurovision, an annual televised glitzy pop fest now in its 60th year that pits hopefuls against each other in their quest to follow in the footsteps of ABBA and other past winners. The grand finale will be held in Vienna on May 23.

After releasing the song, Voltaj set up an online project to provide support to children whose parents are working abroad.

Here is the link to the website: www.delacapat.ro/en
Source: AFP