Michael Carroll and Romania

http://www.sxu.edu/student-life/ministry/crpd/sweeney/hand_held_film_general/bio_michael_carroll.asp

This past week in photography we watched a film titled Hand Held that revolved around Michael Carroll and his work with Romanian orphanages, and how his photography impacted and helped his work.


Romania's dictator,  Nicolae Ceausescu, up until 1989 had been brutal. He outlawed birth control and abortions, hoping to jumpstart population growth by making women have a minimum of five children. Not all of these women had AIDS, but some did and would pass it o to their children, who would be abandoned at understaffed, overcrowded orphanages. Even after the fall of Ceausescu, the orphanages remained as Romania scrambled to regain its footing. The nurses got two needles and syringes a year to inject the children with the medicine since they did not have oral medication. This is how AIDS spread in the orphanages, and rumors of this spread to Western Europe and the Americas.
Michael Carroll was contacted by The Globe to research this epidemic, and shipped off to Romania. He was shown around many orphanages by the doctors, but while he went to wander on his own, a man pulled him aside to show him the testing rooms and the morgue. This is when Carroll saw the horrors of these orphanages. Children who passed away were scattered around the floor and he immediately began to take pictures, and ran to tell his fellow colleagues.
When he returned, he met a man who was picking up his niece who had passed on. Carroll was invited to take pictures of the funeral.
When he returned to America, Carroll got together some people he knew and they started the Romanian Children Relief foundation. Once the story was published in the Globe, people immediately wanted to donate and see what they could do to help.
Later, people could adopt the children, and found that a lot of them had mental, physical, and emotional issues because of the lack of attention, nurturing, and love they received as infants.
Now Michael Carroll is working with Disney, Compaq, Malden Mills, Beth Israel Hospital, University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, American Express and General Motors Corp.He also runs his own photography studio and visits Romania twice a year, continuing his role as director of Romanian Children's relief.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/130114/romania-orphans-homeless

Unable to function well in today's society- weren't taught how to maintain a job or homelife. No national job or housing assistant programs.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/130114/romania-orphans-adoption
Many children are now old enough to experience a variety of mental, emotional, and physical health issues

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/429453/Anneka-Rice-returns-to-Romanian-orphanage-22-years-after-first-visiting-living-hell