The Heredea Family
In one Romanian village, a Habitat house means hope for all

Geta Heredea, the matriarch of a poor family in her rural Romanian village of Mizies, knew life could be better. She lived with her husband and two sons in one room that served as kitchen, dining room, bedroom, homework area and bathing area. She spent her days laboring outside, often in the cold, tending a neighbor's farm animals in exchange for food to feed her family, while her husband worked at a nearby furniture factory. Cooler temperatures exacted a high toll on Geta, exacerbating a congenital, painful leg condition.

"I can't survive any more winters this way," she told her husband, setting out to walk the more than 2 miles to the Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Beius to inquire about how to become a homeowner. That was more than two years ago; today, the Heredeas call a Habitat house home.

"We were trying hard to get out of poverty, but it seemed that we had no chance," she says. "So each of those days was gray; we got used to living in anger, with no hope. As a mother, I was desperate, having in mind all kinds of stressful questions. Where is warmer for the kids? How do I use the kitchen table while they are doing homework? What if the damaged stove takes fire while I'm not at home? How can we repair the walls and ceiling? I can testify that moving into our new home brought peace to our family. This home gave us the possibility to live a completely different, good life."

"We were trying hard to get out of poverty, but it seemed that we had no chance." --Geta Heredea

Geta sometimes dreams that her children--2-year-old AnaMaria, 12-year-old Viorel and 14-year-old Cristi--will attend university. "If you ask them right now," she says, "Viorel will tell you that he wants to be a policeman, and Cristi loves sports cars. I support them in all the things they do. What I wish for them is to be healthy and to be able to build their own future, a better one."

Geta's vision doesn't stop with her own children. She has opened her home to the families of her neighborhood, babysitting neighborhood children while their mothers work and inviting others over after school to do homework alongside her boys, where it's comfortable and warm. And she has lobbied Habitat for Humanity Romania to help build homes for an additional 25 families, two of which are situated on inherited, non-arable land that she and her husband donated to the affiliate. Geta and her family and friends have helped build the homes in their neighborhood, hammering nails, painting, installing insulation and baking traditional Romanian sweetbread for volunteer builders who have come from the United States, Ireland and around Romania.

In 2005, Geta was honored by the Women's World Summit Foundation, a Swiss-based international organization with United Nations consultative status; the organization awarded Geta its Prize for Women's Creativity in Rural Life. "The main thing," she says, "is that Habitat provided to all the children of Mizies village the belief that their future will be great. Habitat gave them hope and trust."

Additional reporting by Zamfir Todor

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