Nobody's Children

During Ceausescu's rule of Romania, attempts to boost the country's population included a ban on abortion and contraception.  This led to thousands of unwanted children being abandoned by their parents.  With their already pitiful resources orphanages were unable to cope and the result was an unimaginable toll on the physical and mental health of a huge number of Romanian children.

At the end of 1989 Ceausescu and his wife were executed after the government was overthrown. The wider world became aware of the terrible conditions in these hundreds of orphanages and the suffering that was taking place.

Many charities were spurred into action and many new charities formed.


George Harrison's wife Olivia founded the Romanian Angel Appeal (RAA) along with the other Beatle wives Linda McCartney, Barbara Bach and Yoko Ono.  Together with a raft of friends and contacts they organised a fundraising album called Nobody's Child in 1990, a copy of which I found at one of yesterday's car boot sales for £1:

Nobody's Child - Romanian Angel Appeal (1990)

It consists of fourteen songs "donated" by an array of musicians including Elton John, the Traveling Wilburys, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees, but the crowning glory of the album must surely be the epic "Civil War" by Guns 'n' Roses.  I was in high school at this time and thoroughly obsessed with G'n'R.  I remember that this song was also used as the b-side to the single "You Could Be Mine", which I still have somewhere on cassingle!

The RAA Foundation was registered in Romania in 1991 and continues it's work with vulnerable children to this day.  Since a secondhand purchase of the LP wasn't really in keeping with the original spirit of the album I donated £10 to UNICEF, one of the RAA Foundation's partners/sponsors.  You can too here.  Here's "Civil War".