* UPDATE 4: 11am 11th April.I transferred a further RON 5,015 from funds donated since Friday. Full disclosure: where PayPal takes a cut of the donation because the transfer is made as a business / paying for a service, I’ve been covering those fees to make sure your entire donation reaches ELF. If you’re considering a donation, please select “friends and family”. Thank you, again and again. 

* UPDATE 3: 10am 7th April: Thanks to your generous donations, I just transferred a further RON 5,135. This brings our total contribution so far to RON 11,327. This is the equivalent of 5 months’ salary for a teacher + 16 meal covers. Massive, heartfelt thank you to everyone who has donated. 

This page will remain online and any further donations will be consolidated and forwarded to ELF School. I’m also looking at other ways to raise funds, but very much learning as I go along. 

Thank you once again. 

* UPDATE 2: 9am 6th April: More money was donated overnight, so earlier this morning I transferred RON 6,192 (just over £1,000) to Ovidiu Chinan. We both want to say a massive thank you. I’ll update this page & my instagram with news from the school as I get them. Thank you again! 

* UPDATE at 9pm 5th April: thanks to your kind donations, we’ve raised a month’s salary for a teacher in a matter of hours! 

My niece and nephew both study at ELF school in Cluj Napoca. The management and teachers from ELF have mobilised themselves to help Ukrainian refugees by opening the first Ukrainian-language kindergarten in Cluj. They have hired a Ukrainian teacher, Anna T. (also a refugee, who arrived in Cluj with her 5yo son) and are looking to hire a second teacher.

They’ve raised funds from parents and taken donations from local businesses to help pay for teaching materials, children’s meals and the teachers’ salaries. So far, they’ve raised just under £5,000 which will cover children’s teaching materials, meals and the teachers’ salaries. The school want to expand their support by offering direct, practical help to the children’s mothers with accommodation, meals, help finding jobs, etc.

Want to support them? Here’s how:

• Through one of the organising parent/teachers from ELF, Ovidiu C. You can send donations via Revolut directly to him - happy to share his detail in private. 
  
•  You can also pay me and I will send this on (will provide screenshots / confirmations). My details are Revolut: @ioanab6p, PayPal ioana.marinca@gmail.com or via direct link here.

Thank you for reading this. I’m a firm believer that the way to change the world is through children, so if we provide them safety and education - we’re heading in  the right direction.

Ioana

Sponsorships:

ELF are also taking sponsorships through a local foundation:
FUNDAȚIA ȚĂNDĂRICĂ (Tandarica Foundation)
Address: Cluj-Napoca, str. C.Brancusi nr. 36, CUI:11744774
A/C number. RO39BTRL01301205936199XX
Legal representative Pop Marcela. 

Cost breakdown:

• The school provide breakfast & lunch to the 12 children, their teacher and translator at RON 20 per day per person. 
• The ELF drama teacher Lucian R. has paid for some initial teaching materials. 
  
• The salary for the new Ukrainian teachers is RON 2,000 pcm (approx £340).

St John’s Ambulance is training volunteers to administer the CoVid vaccine, alongside NHS workers, and on Monday 11th Jan 2021 they opened the doors to mass vaccination centres across the country. I was in the Excel Centre in East London with the SJA volunteers, and captured Lucy giving Greg, an ambulance worker, the first vaccine. Lucy was also featured in a Times article - and I was delighted to get a mention. The experience of photographing the training centres as well as the first vaccine was incredibly emotional and humbling, NHS workers and volunteers are really made of something else. 

Alec Soth mentioned in interviews he enjoys people sending him books and zines - in fact he has a box of found pictures he collects from flea markets and random shops. So I sent him a copy of Isle of Dogs and included a Duck Sale Press postcard. I was incredibly surprised to receive this email from him, particularly because I hadn’t included my email - so he must’ve looked it up.

Needles to say, I was grinning for the rest of the weekend. 

Get your copy of Isle of Dogs here.