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Wiese, Sue and Raye, Barbara and Warner Roberts, Annie and Raye, Barbara. The Beginning of a Partnership

In the spring of 2003 a group of people from the United States, experienced in victim-offender mediation (VOM), traveled to Iasi, Romania, to provide training for young Romania professionals. The group consisted of Sue Wiese, Barbara Raye, and Annie Warner Roberts – all connected in one way or another with the Victim Offender Mediation Association. The training resulted from an invitation by the Community Safety and Mediation Center (CSMC) in Iasi. CSMC had recently embarked on the development of victim-offender mediation as a core component of their work. Specifically, the training consisted of victim-offender mediation and conferencing, training for trainers, and basic mediation. In this article, Wiese, Raye, and Roberts report on their trip and the ten days of training. A longer version of the article can be found on the VOMA web site (www.voma.org).

Balahur, Doina. Romanian juvenile justice system towards its way to restorative practices.

The practice of VOM in Romania has been experimentally undertaken in Bucharest and Craiova. The two experimental centres have been set up in 2002 based on the partnership between the Department of Reintegration from Romanian Ministry of Justice, Centre for Legal Resources and the Foundation Family and Child Care. The technical assistance has been provided by the experts of DFID from UK. According to the aims and objectives of the VOM experiment only those types of crimes have been selected which are based on the criminal complain of the victim (battering, assault and other crimes against the person, insult etc). The persons - victims and young offenders - have been integrated based on their voluntary consent. (excerpt)

Community Safety and Mediation Centre. Final Narrative Report. Project title: RO-Mediere, Sub grant agreement no. 186-A-00-00-00113 (28-RO), ROMANIAN-American Sustainable Partnership (RASP) Umbrella Grant Program, World Learning / USAID

The overall purpose of the activities under this Sub-grant Agreement is development of the Romanian mediation capacity through introduction of new services, increased public awareness, and introduction of more modern legislation relative to mediation of disputes. The Sub-recipient will work closely with its U.S. partner, the Victim Offender Mediation Association (VOMA), as implementers. Activities under this Sub-grant Agreement have two general purposes: (a) Establish a network of three conflict resolution centres in the north-eastern Moldavian region of Romania with teams of mediators working under professional conditions to resolve family and community conflicts, and (b) Strengthen conflict mediation services in Romania through building local NGO capacity, create public awareness on the need for mediation services, and complete the documentary work on the new mediation law. (excerpt)

Restorative Justice and Victim Offender Mediation in Romania

With encouragement from the European Union and the advocacy work of academics and civil society organizations, Romania is beginning to use victim offender mediation as an alternative to court processes in some cases. This article, drawn from an article by Dr. Doina Balahur, summarizes the recent Romanian legislation related to restorative justice. The complete article is attached.

Romanian Mediation Services Initiated

In 2003, the Victim Offender Mediation Association entered into a joint project with the Community Mediation and Safety Center in Romania. The project sought to raise public awareness about mediation, increase mediation capacity, and develop supporting legislation. This article, written by Barbara E. Raye, Annie Warner Roberts, and Sue Wiese describes the project.