“WE’RE NOT EVEN looking for money so much. If we get some it’s great, but we are more interested in raising awareness.”

For someone who has spent his adult life trying to help those who can’t help themselves, John Mulligan knows that money is not always the solution to the problem.

It is through the raising of awareness regarding the conditions in Romania’s orphanages that he hopes help will ultimately find those who have been forgotten about – again.

Those who were in the orphanages 20 years ago as children have now reached adulthood. Many, however, are no better off.

This is the issue that “Who will take care of the children?” attempts to tackle.

(innyriver/YouTube)

Written in conjunction with Eurovision winner Charlie McGettigan, all proceeds from its online sales will be donated to charity organizations that work in Romania.

Having originally started out working with Trade Aid to help improve the country’s infrastructure, Mulligan then focused on lobbying at government level “from Washington to Bucharest”.

In his previous attempts to effect change, Mulligan came up against many obstacles:

They [the EU] said it would be fixed when they allowed Romania in, and then when they did so [in 2007] and things didn’t improve, their view then was that they couldn’t do anything about it.

Mulligan feels that the wool has been pulled over too many eyes for too long. “When Romania was trying to impress the EU,” he says, “they said that there would be no children under three kept in institutions.”

“When I asked them how they solved it, I was told that they were now kept in the maternity hospital instead.”

“People in Romania have a lot on their plate,” he says, “and we think we have problems.”