Our History

Everything has a starting point

Let’s start at the very beginning – somewhere around 1989…

ORT was founded by Bob Terrell a retired orthotist who heard about the plight of disabled people in Romania. He and his wife Brenda, a retired nurse, went to see for themselves, visiting a disabled centre, and meeting doctors at the hospital in Oradea. They met Nelu and Ani, a Romanian couple who run Alpha and Omega which is a local Romanian charity. After a month’s stay Bob and Brenda felt the Lord led them to set up ORT. They collected equipment no longer needed in this country and transported it to the hospital and disabled centre. After a few years Bob was introduced to a young South African man, Jaco, also an orthotist who had a similar vision to Bob of building a workshop for disabled people to work, making disabled equipment for the people of Oradea. Jaco had a financial backer and was more advanced in his plans so Bob helped as a consultant to get the work started as soon as possible. While staying with Nelu and Ani on yearly trips they visited their family village deep in the Romanian countryside. Bob was told of the plight of the poor not only in the villages but also in the town. Ani asked if ORT could help their organisation Alfa & Omega.

Bob felt that we should help all we could so ORT decided to concentrate our efforts on this cause. Over the following year ORT was taken to a small mountain site and heard about the vision of building a small centre for the young disadvantaged children and young people so they could experience a break from their mundane lives in town. This all developed into the services we provide today.

Bob and Brenda always had a strong desire to help people that needed some form of support whether financial, physical, emotional or spiritual and to reach as many people as possible by showing them the love of God in our support.

This emphasis is still relevant today through our ever-developing projects.

Operation Romania Trust became a registered charity on the 30^th June 1995.