As a family we are strong believers of things happening for a reason, although it is not always clear and answers are not easy to find.

Before we moved to Chandlers Ford we lived in Swansea and ran a smallholding. In the past we have been involved as a family in distributing aid from England to Eastern Europe. Although we all know that this is a great help and is much needed but there is always a way to improve how to help people.

After our visit to Romania in April 2001 we realised that there is a need for much more than aid, the people in Romania want their lives back and all they need is a little training and encouragement to do so. While talking to several people we realised that one way would be to set up smallholding projects. It would be a type of pyramid learning and very beneficial to far more than one family.

So Far
After the research had been done on whether it was a feasible idea, and it had been decided on where the first training centre was to be set up, the hard work started. It was decided that Constanta was to become the home of Growing Care.
Many of you may remember Lew visiting Constanta; the trip became famous for the McDonalds argument, and also going down into the underground pipes to visit the children's homes. Daniella and her team are very interested in the project. This is one of their team's aims to teach their children to farm but they have not yet had anyone experienced in the field to help them out.

The Move
In July 2003 the big move was made, Jacquie and Lew left for Romania on the 28th July. After an eight day journey they arrived in Siminoc to a very warm and friendly welcome. After half a day of slight relaxation the paperwork started, two very long days later and the land was ours. The land we had purchased had a crop of sunflowers, due to be harvested soon. This put stop to a lot of work, we were able to pull some sunflowers out to park the caravan so it was time to set up base and try to get into some kind of order.

After the sunflower's had been harvested, we started to plan for the year. In Romania a plan needs to be submitted each year for what you intend to grow.
By the beginning of October the 10 hectares of land, had been harrowed and ploughed ready for the planting of Wheat in late October and Oats in the Spring. The building work has started, it is one of the out buildings, mainly for storage purposes, the main building work will start in the spring when the weather is better and also depending on funds.

The first animals were purchased just two weeks after arriving. The new additions came in the form of six baby chickens. Each chicken was named which the Romanians found very strange. A kitten was also adopted or she adopted us don't really know which way it was, but she is a cute little thing and has a lot of hidden talents. Her name is Sunny, she got her name as she crawled out from the field of sunflowers.