title: A new beginning.
abstract: It's been less than 12 months since I visited Romania, yet it seems like a lifetime away. When Nursing Standard first took on the task of co-ordinating the 'Caring for Romania Appeal' little did we know just what that might involve. It seemed an ideal way for a professional journal to play a small part in promoting the art and science of nursing in a country where it had ceased to exist as we know it. We would raise some funds and perhaps attempt a professional visit or two to develop networks for our Romanian colleagues. But the Appeal caught the imagination of nurses and non-nurses alike and soon we were sending lorryloads of supplies to Bucharest. During those early months the phones never stopped ringing, hordes of clothes, medical equipment, toys, text books were being avidly collected and stored all over the UK. St Lawrence's Hospital offered us space for the supplies before transport could be arranged and the goods delivered as speedily as possible to schools, orphanages and our target project, the Centre for the Rehabilitation of Mentally Handicapped Children in Bucharest.