The drama of a child who does not let himself be beaten

Marked by a difficult childhood and the death of his brother, Mihai, the child who taught himself English and programming, wishes he could have a career in IT

On May 29, Narada organizes the second fair “Together for our school” to help 30 educational institutions raise the necessary funds to solve various needs, such as those for upgrading or repairing infrastructure that may affect the safety of students. One of these educational institutions is Simion Stolnicu High School, from Comarnic. Mihai, an exceptional child, studies here who went through unimaginable traumas, traumas that didn’t bring him down, but made him stronger and made him want to be better.

„I’m very, very proud of him. I’m sorry I can’t do more for him”, Mihai’s mother begins her story. He saw his brother in the casket, he experienced his mother’s helplessness in the face of life’s problems, he lived in a non-family home and had days when the table was perhaps empty. However, God gave him a mother willing to do anything for him, to sacrifice herself to blood to help him have a future. Mihai repaid it and became better day by day, he taught himself to program, he taught himself English and today he is one of the best students in his class, dreaming of a career in IT. “My son died 7 years ago. Cristi was his name and he was 16 years old. He hung himself“, confesses Corina Buretea, Mihai’s mother. She was a child when she married the father of her children, more out of a desire to get away from home. She, in turn, had an abusive mother and a father who had fallen prey to drink as a refuge from the life she had to endure. Corina lived only in arguments, beatings, insults and other forms of abuse, so when she met a boy who seemed to change her life, she got married without blinking. “We shouldn’t have gotten along in the first place, because we didn’t match at all“. They had a child, Cristi, and when she was pregnant again with Mihai, she separated from her husband. Her mother didn’t even want to see her because she left her husband and left her to live in a homeless shelter, in the worst living conditions, unmoved by the fact that she was carrying a child in her womb , even her grandson.

A judge, seeing how she lives, gave custody of the older child to the father, and it was as if everyone turned against Corina. She fought with everyone and everything, she did not let herself be defeated and tried to start a new life with Mihai, even if she suffered terribly because she was not allowed to see her older son. The latter grew up in the house of his paternal grandparents, and when his grandmother collapsed, he hanged himself. He was only 16 years old. Mihai was 8 and had such a cruel soul that he could easily be torn apart by suffering.

With such a trauma, he could easily slide down a slope of no return, but he chose to take the good example of his brother. Since then, he only wanted to be like him when he was alive: a good child, an exceptional learner. “At the funeral, his colleagues brought him the crown because he was going to receive the first prize”.

Even if the difficulties did not stop there, Mihai did not give up. “He grew up almost alone. When he was very small, I left him in the care of a family friend so that I could go to work. Later I found out that he was beaten, that he did not give him food and that he was treated badly. From the age of 7 I left him alone in the house. He knows how he did his homework, how he heated his food, and how he managed. I left for work in the morning and came back in the evening“. There was a time when Mihai went to a psychologist to learn how to manage his traumas, and that seems to have helped him. Alone, as he grew up, he learned and tried to become better and better. “He amazes me with how much he knows and what he does. He taught himself English from the Internet, just as he learned to program. For Christmas I paid off the bank and got him a high-performance laptop. After I pay the installments, we don’t have much money left for food, there are days when I may not have anything to put on the table, but we move forward. I want to see him achieve, succeed in IT, as he wants. I’m sorry I can’t do more for him, give him math training, without which he can’t go on”.

Mihai’s father, his mother says, is not interested in him, just like the other relatives. There are only the two of them in the world, Corina and Mihai, they support each other, comfort and encourage each other when it’s hard for them and encourage each other to overcome all obstacles.

High School “Simion Stolnicu” Comarnic from Prahova county, where Mihai studies, is only one of the 30 educational units registered at Târgul “Together for our school” organized by Narada on May 29 with the goal of raising funds for infrastructure repairs that may affect student safety. In the fairs organized in each school, the educational units mobilize the communities to participate and buy the products on sale. The money collected will once again be subject to a doubling mechanism, supported by the partners Narada, Bergerat Monnoyeur and Ipso Agricultura, and will be used to finance alerts such as changing the floor and roof in a school, installing a security system , rehabilitating the electrical installation, building a sports field or learning and playing spaces for children.

In the first edition of the fair “Together for our school” within the “Safety in Schools” campaign, held in December 2022, 25 schools across the country have managed to collect approximately 100 thousand euros, money doubled by the Narada partners so that the result is better safety conditions for students in Romania. This is just one of the examples by which, last year, Narada intervened in schools in Romania, creating an impact in the lives of a over 50 thousand children, helping to resolve almost 200 alerts registered on its platform, HeartEdu, and investing over 3 million lei in education.