In a village in South India there is a huge tree. Nobody knows how old this tree is. This tree is called Ammaram, „Mothertree“ and is hollow in the middle, in which every person can sit. One legend says the following: Many years ago a wise man lived inside this cave. He ate only the fruits from the tree, and wore the bark from the tree as clothing. After his death, one found the following carved into the bark he had been wearing:

The Tree does not eat its own fruits.
The River does not drink its own Floods.
And the Clouds do not rain for themselves.
For the others serves the Power of the Good

Very dear Friends and Supporters,

with this small storywe greet you for christmas and the new year. May the new year be good to you and have many pleasant surprises waiting for you.

We thank you very dearly for all the help and support in the past year. You have contributed to the preserving of our work with the parentless children in Cristuru-Secuiesc/Romania.

For us the last year was full of jolly as well as sad experiences. It is nice to see, how young people who don't experienceany support from family or state, are inspired by our work and are given new strength and courage for their life. We are informed about this often and in many ways.

Picture: Children of the youth project Fehérlófia

Székelykeresztúr, Erdély, Romania. Two weeks ago we were glad to receive very special guests with our youth project Fehérlófia. It was the third time already, that Rüdiger Steinke, along with Seminars International, had organised a trip through Romania and Transylvania for American travellers.
This time there were about 20 seniors, bearing their age well, who had elected the long trip from their homeland Minnesota, in order to go hiking and get to know the most beautiful places of the country for two weeks, along with Rüdiger.

On Monday, the 18th September, we were glad to receive them in the hall of the Catholic Church community to have coffee and cake with them.

Picture: The kids are singing for our guests

Review on one year of work with the executive board of the Romania Initiative Group Bautzen

One day we were sitting on a meadow with Germans and Hungarians from Romania, telling us stories of our lives. It was a beautiful summer day in Turia, the place of our camp in the eastern Carpathians. A while ago it had rained and there was a soft haze rising from the green meadow. We asked each other, what kind of way had led us here and I started to tell the others about mine.

But first of all I’d like to present myself. My name is Peter Grossmann, I’m 29 years old and I’m from Grossdubrau which is near Bautzen, but I lived and worked in Dresden for 8 years. I’ve been trained to work in the field of software-development and media-publishing, during my whole life I’ve been working self-employed. I love nature, do lots of sports and I like hiking. That’s a very good equilibrium to my work. Since the beginning of this year I’ve been working voluntarily in Székelykeresztúr (Romanian: Cristuru Secuiesc).

My name is Kinga Gergely. I’m the new co-worker of the association Feherlofia. I was born the 30th April 1979 in Marosvasarhely (Romanian: Tirgu Mures) and I’ve also lived there. From 2000 to 2004 I studied Geography in Kolozvar (Romanian: Cluj Napopca) at the Babes Bolyai University. These years of studying have aroused my interest in certain work fields. The Christian way of living is very important to me and within this framework I’d also like to work with the youth. I hope that my work in Feherlofia will permit me to transmit the importance of community and the life within it to the youth in a familial atmosphere, which can be a source of strength for everybody. With my activity I’d like to support young people in order to develop their personality, so that one day they can successfully blend in society.

My dear friends of the Romanian Initiantive Group Bautzen and Feherlofia!

My husband and I are expecting our little baby in September; that’s why this summer will have been my last intense time with the youth of Feherlofia. In July I transferred my work to Kinga Gergely, my successor, who will do the work for probation now. She’s from Tirgu Mures, a cultural city with about 165000 inhabitants, where Romanians, Hungarians and Romas live together. She’s a teacher but prefers to do an alternative pedagogical work, in which she will be in close contact to the youth and can also have impulses for her own life. I hope she will soon get along with the chaotic Romanian bureaucracy of everyday life and will enjoy gathering with the young people.

The activities of the “Romania Initiative Group Bautzen e.V.� have been focused on setting up projects in the district of Harghit for 14 years, above all in the place called Cristuru Secuiese (Szekelykeresztur).

This place is located in the Hungarian – speaking area of Siebenbürgen (also called Transylvania). Siebenbürgen is a European area which has been settled by various ethnic groups for centuries. However, German and Hungarian farmers and craftsmen have been the predominant groups in the country since the 12th century. It had been ruled by Hungary and respectively Austria until 1918. After 1918 and 1945 it became part of Romania. This resulted in the formation of new borders, which are considered unnatural by a lot of native inhabitants in Siebenbürgen and thus only partly accepted.

The disastrous policy carried out by the following dictator Nicolae Ceaucescue did not get the various ethnic groups together , but widened the gap between the Hungarians, Germans, Romanians and the smaller minorities. Among those are the “Roma�, a minority that can be seen everywhere. This minority appears as the lowest social class.