Support system for new moms in Romania

I am the creator of the most impactful support community for new mothers in Romania, running a nearly 150.000 members community on Facebook, named LaPrimulBebe. My goal, besides support - offering access to a safe, emphatic and trustable community full of info, emotional support, educational offline events- is to create the first national support system for new moms that doesn't exist in Romania. We've build 23 local communities that serve 23 counties.We still have 18 counties to go. So far we 've organized 250 educational events and gatherings for our members, with over 30.000 participants. Twice a year we run in our Facebook groups only the most amazing humanitarian campaigns to support the medical system for children in Romania. We've raised so far 1.700.000 Euro from our members and refurbished several hospitals for children. I believe that supporting new mothers & educating them is the key to more balanced nations.

In a country where no one supports mothers, where the lack of respect for children & medical care is huge, we had to step up ourselves. When my son was 3 months old I suffered of a severe postpartum depression. Having zero support I started a small group. Today, that group is an organization that supports mothers in the first 4 years after birth, with nearly 150.000 members and 23 groups in 23 counties. The lack of information & support leads to depression, low self esteem & energy passed on to to kids. A national support system is needed! Our country is no.1 at infantile mortality in the European Union. My project is to have a support community in each of the 41 counties, support offered online & offline. Get more visibility for mothers' needs! I support new mothers because this is the only way children will have better lives. 

Every year, nearly 200.000 women give birth to a child in Romania, a country where the health system is so down that you can only pray not to get sick. With so many issues on the table the emotional needs of pregnant women and new mothers are completely ignored, or better said no one knows them. 

8 out of 10 mothers are going alone throughout baby blues after birth and 2 out of 10 are suffering from postpartum depression, an affection that Romanians still believe it's nothing.

Moving to different cities for work is a frequent thing, so new mothers have to face as well the distance and lack of support from their family. It is only natural that they sick support where they can get it fast: online.

Our 24/24 online communities together with our educational events together with our humanitarian campaigns for refurbishing children hospitals together with our video program of 26 hours of content from experts (with all a pregnant and a new mom need to know in the first year) together with the awareness campaigns we are running on mothers' needs every year should create the national support system most developed countries have for their mothers.

Online support community for pregnant women and new mothers for each out of the 41 counties in Romania. A very well curated, emphatic, respectful, educated online platform where mothers are benefitting of sharing experiences and info 24/7. Offline educational events for the most important needs a new mothers has: from nursing, to feeding solids, to how to handle your love relationship after having children, to first aid, to inspirational events where mothers learn how to take care of them first.

Our project is having a dedicated small team for each county, in order to get to as many new mothers as possible in each area. Our last 4 years of intense activity are a proof that each local community needs full attention, attention that you can not spread on more than one community.

The project brings mothers together, offers a complete support system, and helps building a voice for mothers in Romania, that at some point will be so loud that our government can't ignore it.

My project addresses new mothers in Romania and pregnant women that no one supports on the way to become parents and after that.

They are women interested in evolving, learning, interested in their jobs as well, interested in offering their children not only food and clothes but also a balanced emotional education.

At this point I believe there is no other entity that knows better their need but us, that we dedicated our past 7 years to this mission.

Our project offers them: a space where they feel understood, where they feel they are not alone in this beautiful but very very difficult, calms down their anxieties by providing info and educational events, gives them the chance of being part of the movement that rebuilds the broken medical system by refurbishing the hospitals where the unlucky ones end up with their children, allows them to be part of an online family that does no longer exists in real life. Cause even if 2020 it still takes a village to raise a child, and support his mother.

When the mother is supported, seen, heard, respected, valued she'll raise balanced kids with high self-esteem. An unhappy mother can't raise a happy child.

Part of our mission is that in 10 years each person in Romania will know that a new mother needs support after giving birth, especially emotional one. Also that the emotional roller coster she goes through in this period is real and it's better not to walk it alone.

When people, families, employers, the medical system and  government will be aware of these important needs, mothers will finally be supported to raise more balanced future generations.

The emotional attachment created between a mom & her child in the first 2 years is deciding the emotional life of that kid forever.   

I bet every single one of us has had a moment in our lives where we hit rock bottom. I remember I was standing in front of my window, holding my newborn that hasn’t stopped crying for five hours. Five entire hours! I’ve tried everything to comfort him. In the hospital, after giving birth, the nurses took care of all my needs and the baby’s, but back at home I simply couldn’t handle it.

After more than 30 hours without sleep, pains and the biggest feeling of failure, a crazy thought crossed my mind. For a second, for just one second I thought if it wouldn’t be easier to throw myself out of the window with him. A moment I paid for, with years of feeling guilty. 

Living in a big city, far away from my parents and being used to an active professional and social life, I felt so alone in that moment, and in the whole year that followed. 

It was then I've created a small Facebook group in which I added 10 friends, In less than a month 400 mothers I din't know were part of my group. 

Fast forward 7 years, we’re now over 150.000 members.

This community saved me in every way I could be saved. I found out soon that I could easily spare other women of the dark places I have experienced.

We've built a place where humanity shows its face every day, and this is the main reason why I keep on going.

One day, a mother was 200 km away from her home, driving alone with her child. It was almost midnight when her tire exploded, and out of despair she asked for help in our community. In less than one hour, 2 cars with fathers came along and helped her changed the tire. Without knowing each other.

Another day one of our mothers ended up in the hospital and urgently needed blood and after our cry for help, the blood donation center was filled with fathers, friends, colleagues of our members. 

One of our mothers shared one day the loss of her newborn, letting us know that she'll no longer be with us. Seeing her post another member went to her hospital that same day, just to sit by her side, because she had also lost a baby. Without knowing each other! That is the power of a real community!

I have all it takes make this project work. I am a former entrepreneur that currently is building a social movement on her mission.

I have the power of writing and inspiring mothers to get them by our side, I had the power to gather a huge velvet army of women that stand by me every time I call them, I have the mind and business experience to put words into numbers, and numbers into impact. So far we have impacted nearly half a million children and their families.

Starting with zero funds, but a great strategy and leadership skills. And more important the authentic care for other mothers, and other mothers' good.

I have been chosen by Facebook one of the most impactful community leaders in the world and one of the most relevant 20 female community leaders in Europe.

I have the heart. And I do believe that all it takes to make a change is man with a dream. Or in this case, a woman :)

My entire community is created on trial and error. My biggest mistakes and failures were what got us further.

I always learnt my lessons fast and implemented fast what I have learnt.

The most difficult situations are related to the recent pandemic crisis: we had to stop our offline events and we had to drop our humanitarian campaign that was aiming refurbishing a neonatal wing and prepared for 5 months.

Listening to our community needs and voice, they really wanted to be involved in the pandemic medical crisis, we reorganized our entire campaign in 2 weeks. And it was a success. We raised  a quarter of a million euro and bought protection equipment for 40 hospitals plus some ventilators, all in three weeks.

And instead of the events we are ready to launch now online events with thousands of mothers wanting to join, even if our strategy was only offline events.

There isn't a more powerful tool that the mistake you learn from.

When my son was 2 years old, I've decided to climb Kilimanjaro, a long dream of mine. It was so so difficult to leave at home a child that I have not been apart from since he was born. It was an experience of a lifetime, so I had to pay it forward. After that experience I've built a story telling event for my community to spread the idea that after giving birth we should honor all our roles, and not just the one of being a mother. 

Thousands of mothers have been part of this event and so so many started pursuing their lost dreams. I gout thousands of mothers talking about lost desires and dreams and not only that. Three of them climbed Kilimanjaro, one of the Everest basecamp, lots of them started a business they were passionate about, started learning a new language, ran marathons, went back to a university they were passionate about and changed their careers.

Happiness is something you make, not receive <3

We found a way of building a national support system for women starting online and with private funds.

Our humanitarian auctions online raise in 6 days over 250.000-400.000 Euro only in our communities. The system we developed, as auctions, is so effective that Facebook asked us to speak in front of their engineering team about it.

Pay it forward system of mothers standing next to each other when no one else does.

Our activities are: Online support group 24/7 for pregnant women and mothers after giving birth by access to a curated community of shared experiences, info and emotional support. Offline events on parental education with thousands of parents present yearly. A post-natal training with everything a mother needs to know made accessible to any mother in Romania. Humanitarian campaigns to support our medical system for children in Romania.

Our outputs: Calming anxieties and stress immediately, access to valuable contact and info, increase self-esteem, reduce social alienation. Educating mothers in the volunteering sector - we have a program for volunteers with over 200 volunteers, reducing professional alienation by giving mothers a meaning while staying at home and volunteer for a cause they care for. Educating parents on top subjects about raising children, protect children from unconscious or bad parenting, reduce social alienation and increase connection in a time that mothers are lonely (in Romania mothers stay 2 years at home with their children). Raising money to support the damaged medical system. 

Our outcomes: Creating a national support system for Romania's mothers. Get visibility for mother's needs. Give mothers a voice they can shout their rights in front of the society and their employers. Give children the chance of being raised by mothers that are happier, calmer, more confident and having a safety net, assuring that they will grow more emotional balanced, confident with better chances to great human relationships. 

Today we are serving 350.000 of mothers and children.

In one year we are aiming 500.000.

And in 5 years  we are aiming to serve 1.500.000.

Our project affects the fathers as well since they are also part of our movement, and present in our offline events and humanitarian campaigns, but we took them out for this question. The state of a mother influences greatly the well-being of the entire family.

For the next year we are planning to get develop the national system of support for mothers spreading the word everywhere in our country, so all the new moms to know they can easily get the support they need. And getting 6000 pregnant women active in this program.

Hiring 2 communities builders for our locals to be able to extend our work in the smaller cities.

In five years we are planning to in 80% of all the counties in Romania by opening local support communities.

And focusing on at least one change in our law for mothers in Romania, pursuing our authorities with great impact on them.

Lack of funding for more people in the team and national awareness of our project. Today we are 7 people running 23 communities, rebuilding hospitals, running events all over the country, running huge humanitarian campaigns and running to sustain ourselves.

Lack of funding for raising awareness upon our project, a way more mothers in our country could find about what we do and how they can get support.

We will try to attract private funds from companies interested in our community as an amazing promoting market, we already have partnerships. We are on our way to find media partners that can promote us smart and effective.

We are only doing commercial partnerships with companies that want to promote themselves and sustain our cause like Lidl, Bioderma, Avent etc.

Our business model has 4 pillars of revenue:

1. Offline and now online events - brands partnerships. Our events are very popular because first of all they serve the highest needs of our parents. To take a mother out of her home while she has a baby at home is hard. She comes out only for real value. Our events are full-house all the time, with waiting lists. We have created a strategy that is working for years now

2. NGO fiscal facilities - in Romania people and companies can direct a part of the taxes they pay the state to a preferred NGO.

3. Our video program - profitable on volume

4. Admin fee - for our humanitarian campaigns

Our key beneficiaries are mothers and fathers and pregnant women.

We are creating value for our target through online and offline support 24/7 365/365 in a period of high lack of balance, probably the most difficult period in a woman's life and our community gives back in the humanitarian campaigns, in taxes directed to our NGO, in brands partnerships (a large part of our members work for most of the big brands in Romania)

Our four pillar system works so far some years. The larger and stronger our community becomes the more financial sustainable it gets.

We had raised funds from Facebook - Facebook Community leadership program in 2018. Money that helped us double our community in size in one year and a half.

200.000 grant by the end of 2021. This amount will be able to create 5 jobs and cover awareness expenses for our national system of support.

315.000 Dollars

The Elevate Prize will build a lot of trustability and pride for our community's members. Our project is all about our members so their trust is always turning into more funds, more ideas, more support for our organization. As well as for our team. Since a prize like this is a confirmation of the value of our work.

Second, but not less important, a prize like this will raise awareness nationally. We have media coverage, the press likes a lot our projects but still we are at the beginning so winning such a prize will be so interesting for them, and beneficial for all mothers in Romania.

Winning it can help us overcome the barrier of getting more people on our team and raise awareness upon our project nationally.

We are always in search of learning and for us being able to get mentorship or coaching is an amazing chance. Also funding and media exposure. This means more mothers will find about us, get support and provide a better version of themselves to their kids, Meaning better loves for children.

Trustable and worldwide well-know organizations for children's rights, and mother's rights.