Michael Carroll

MICHAEL CARROLL  

Michael Carroll originally went to Romania in January 1990, which was four weeks after the fall of the Ceausescu regime. He is a professional photographer and for his first assignment in the country, he had to document the way that aids was being delivered and spread in Ceausescu Romania. The story that he captured with his cameras and handheld, shows scenes and images of unimaginable neglected, sick, and malnourished children living in tight and unhealthy conditions in hospitals/orphanages. These orphanages were under-equipped with medicine and supplies, and ran by undereducated "nurses" and volunteers who were unable to give the overwhelming number of abandoned children the attention and proper treatments that they needed. Each nurse was only given two needles, in which they did not have anything to decontaminate them with, so the number of children with AIDS spread rapidly. When Michael Carroll  published his story and images in The Boston Globe, this caused  hundreds of phone calls from New Englanders who were more than willing to help these children. This group of men and women came together to form Romanian Children’s Relief (RCR), which sent its first shipment of medical supplies and toys to Bucharest in  1990. Later there was a movie published about his story called Hand Held by Don Hahn.

Romanian Children's Relief or Fundaţia Inocenţi, is an organization that is "non-profit, non-governmental and with no political or religions affiliation, dedicated to help Romanian children and their families without any discrimination". The RCR is ran by 31 professional employees, more than 100 volunteers, $302000 budget, and 7 running programs. This organization was founded in 1998 and is still successful today. The Romanian Children's Relief /Fundatia Inocenti is not an adoption agency or religiously based. This organization was founded by Michael Carroll after he was personally affected by the children when he was assigned there to photograph an report the conditions for the Boston Globe.