Lumos voices

Children who are placed in institutions or so called ‘orphanages’ are not only deprived of a family life but, very often, are also denied the ...

In Northern Transylvania, Christmas is extraordinary. Picture-postcard mountains and pine forest, covered with a metre of snow. The air crisp and cold. Horse-drawn sleighs drive ...

“They hide us away… and treat us like animals. But we are not animals. We are human beings. And we have rights”. EACH year, on ...

When I first worked in Romania, in the early 1990s, there were hushed discussions and rumours about the problem of HIV infection in the institutions. ...

Nothing prepares you for seeing a child in a cage. There is something so viscerally wrong with caging children that the image confronting you makes ...

On the 9th of November, 1989, the Berlin Wall was breached. We, the children of the cold war, watched in awe, as thousands from behind ...

We can scarcely imagine the trauma in a young child’s life when their mother, or father, or both, die from a terrible disease. They can ...

Five years ago, my father died. I was a grown-up. I had spent my entire career working with children who were grief-stricken and bereaved in ...

Millions of institutionalised children live in shadows and darkened rooms, hidden from the outside world, with no power over their lives and little hope of ...

It's actually five little words, but I had to draw your attention to a hugely important clause which could - if left unamended - result ...