Our Association

Gera Verrips, born in the Netherlands, moved to Romania in September 2006. After three years cooperating with two mission organizations and learning the language, she founded, in April 2009, in The Netherlands “Stichting een betere Roemeense wereld”, with fundraising and public relations as its main tasks. And in June 2009 she founded in Romania “Asociatia O lume mai buna-Romania” whose main task is the executive work for the projects in Romania. In 2012 she married the Romanian Marius Alexe, in 2013 she gave birth to Sebastian and in 2015 to Karina.

The main goal of the close cooperation between those 2 organizations is to improve the living circumstances of the less fortunate from Romania who live in difficult conditions regardless of age, gender, religion or background.

The foundations both work on a Christian basis.

The Romanian organization owns a house in Codlea, Romania, called “Canaan”. This project house is the basis for the various projects.

Our projects

Home for all

In Romania there are many families where poverty, abuse, alcohol abuse or neglect play a major role in the daily life, but also, for example, illness or disabilities of one or more family members. Because, often, the situation becomes untenable in the long term or simply not acceptable, care for one or more family members is sooner or later transferred to or taken over by the Romanian state. Children are placed in children's homes and people with a disability / mental illness in one of the hospitals for psychiatric patients. And that is a hard life that you don't wish for anyone!

After years of working with children living in orphanages, as organization we have decided, from the first of December 2019, to focus our aid primarily on prevention, where education will be an important means of achieving results.

This with the aim of supporting these families and their environment, structurally improving their lives, making them more resilient and, where possible, avoiding placement.

Our project house 'Canaan' in Codlea is the base for our activities with the target group mentioned before and the individual request for help from the participant and his / her environment is central. Registration can be done by any person. One on one activities can be offered or in groups. At the participant's home or in the project house. These can be day activities, but also weekend care with the possibility to stay over night. The participants all come from Codlea and the surrounding area and the age and gender of the participants is diverse. There is close cooperation with the immediate environment of the participants with its main purpose structural improvements in the life of the participant and his / her environment.

Meal with the elderly

Our second project is a smaller project, which has been around for 10 years now and is aimed at the elderly in Codlea. And especially those who are lonely, sick or poor. As they get older, many elderlies are confronted with their children going abroad, friends / partners who die or with illness. This makes them more and more isolated. Twenty-four of these elderlies participate in our project where they are visited at home to find out where they can use help and they are monthly offered a meal in two regular groups of 12 persons. The meals, which we organize in our project house Canaan, create new friendships, the elderlies get attention and we take them out of their situation for a while.

Aid supplies

The third and final main activity of our organization is the transports with aid supplies that we receive from the Netherlands on a regular basis. The (second-hand) items are collected, sorted and packaged in the Netherlands, after which they are brought to Romania with a sponsored transport. From there they are distributed to those persons, groups, institutions or organizations that need the goods such as hospitals, several kindergartens, shelter for mother-child, etc. The aid supplies include goods such as medical articles, development materials, craft materials, toys, long-lasting food, clothing, gifts, cleaning products, school supplies and care products. There are often discussions about whether it is not better to purchase goods on the spot, so that you would support the local shops. The idea sounds wonderful, but the reality is different. On one hand, we receive many usable goods in the Netherlands that we cannot even buy in Romania. In addition, we as an organization are unable to raise sufficient financial resources to be able to purchase the same amount of goods in Romania. People simply give (second-hand) goods more easily than money. And the quality of second-hand goods from the Netherlands is much better than new products that we could buy in Romania.