Children in Distress is a charity whose mission is to provide love and care for children living with HIV, Aids or incurable illnesses.

Children in Distress believes that no child should be left alone and frightened, in pain and in the dark; no child should have to live in a sewer, dirty, abandoned and abused; no child should have to die with no medication to ease their pain, no hand to hold and no one to comfort them.

Since 1990 Children in Distress has been bringing love and care to the suffering and abandoned children of Eastern Europe, irrespective of race or religion.

For more information about the charity please follow this link - http://www.childrenindistress.org

Children in Distress is a small UK based charity established by Deed of Trust in December 1990 and registered with the Charity Commissioners as Romanian Children's Aid. In 1992 we changed our name to Children in Distress and extended our provision of relief to cover children in Eastern Europe (Registered Charity number 1001327).

Children in Distress was founded by the Rev Dr John Walmsley, a Church of England Vicar. While the ethos of the organisation remains Christian it works with children of all races and religions, and none. In Eastern Europe we see it as very important that our work crosses ethnic and religious boundaries because of the tensions which exist there.

Our mission is to strive for the basic human rights of children in Eastern Europe, to care for as many children as possible and build a better world for them now and in the future. We strive to work in a spirit of partnership with our Eastern European colleagues in achieving our aims.

Our work is funded through donations from the general public both cash and in-kind, and we receive regular donations through Gift Aid and a child sponsorship scheme.

Over the past ten years our work has developed into a sustained programme and has become focused principally on those children with Aids, and increasingly on a range of other terminal illnesses. Our aims are really simple. Through our specialised facilities we aim to bring quality of life and dignity in death to children that would otherwise have neither. We are working with our Romanian partners to develop their skills in palliative medical and nursing care and to establish centres of excellence, which can serve as models for other Romanian institutions.