Alina A - 23 years old

Basic Information:

Alina is a 23 year-old Romanian girl from Timisoara, a city in the south-western part of Romania. She graduated from the Faculty of Polytechnics, specialising in Construction. She works as an architect, but because the company doesn’t have enough projects, she thinks she will soon be made redundant.

She wants to be an au pair because she likes children. She also wants to know a new country and to get the chance to be independent and to start a new life. She also wants to get the chance to improve her English so that after 1 year (or longer) to be able to work in England in the construction sector. She would like to be placed in a city or a town.

Alina likes different sports (snowboarding, ice skating, handball), surfing the web (but she also knows how to use many computer programmes). She also likes painting, travelling and socialising with friends.

She is a non smoker; she used to smoke, but quit some months ago.

Childcare Experience:

When she was younger she used to go to visit her Grandmother during the summer holidays. She helped her Grandmother look after her cousins because she was old and couldn’t keep up with them. Her cousins were 4 year old Larisa and 10 year old Vladut. She cooked for her cousins (easy meals), played with them and helped them with their homework. Alina also looked after her boss’ child. The boy was 1 year old and when his Mum is busy she asks her to look after the boy. She looks after him 2 or 3 hours per day and usually she spends the time keeping him busy, playing with him or taking him in the park. During university, she had a friend who had a baby boy, but had to work after giving birth so they asked Alina to babysit for them. She did it for 1 year, but after that she had to stop because she tried to get a job in the domain she was studying (construction).

English Skills:

Alina’s English was good and she had no problem in understanding or answering my questions.

Other languages:

Her native language is Romanian. She also speaks Spanish (medium level) and Italian and German(beginner).

Housework:

Alina is prepared to care for babies and children, to undertake light housework (tidying/ vacuuming/ dusting), ironing, shopping (food/groceries), cooking for children and driving.

Character:

Alina describes herself as shy (at the beginning), playful, childish sometimes (she thinks this is important in order to have a good relationship with children), spontaneous, trustful and responsible.

Eating:

Alina doesn’t have regular hours to eat; she usually eats Romanian food or fast food. She said she likes eating everything, but she doesn’t like some types of cheese.

Driving:

Alina used to drive daily, but because she doesn’t have a car anymore, in the last year she hasn’t driven much at all.

Family:

Her Father (55 years old) works as a guard at a bank; her Mum (45 years old) is unemployed. She has a brother who graduated this year from the University of Medicine in Bucuresti and lives there.