Great Britons in Romania: Captain Stan Platt OBE, founder of Light Into Europe

Today I invited our colleague Ian Saunders to share with us his interview with Captain Stan Platt OBE, founder of Light Into Europe, which currently sources and trains guide dogs for the blind. This is the fourth in our series of blogs about Great Britons in Romania.

Stan’s first experience of Romania was shortly after the December 1989 revolution. He very quickly made friends and in co operation with the Ministry of Health, and with DHL sponsorship, he re started the Romanian Air Ambulance service, Aviasan, after 25 years (it was closed down when 2 Romanian engineers took off in an aircraft from Baneasa airport and defected to Austria in 1976). Stan worked with hospitals and doctors across the country, including State Secretary, Dr Raeed Arafat, who he still advises.

In 1986 he founded Light into Europe, whose philosophy is to grow a seed project or NGO and then hand it over to dedicated Romanian staff to run. Share and help are the key buzz words and drivers.

He planned to return to the UK in 2003 but his wife Camelia felt they still had a role to play in Romania. They undertook a needs assessment and concluded there were two “Cinderella” groups that really needed help: the deaf, and the blind. He chose to help both groups.

One of his first achievements was to standardise sign language throughout the country. His latest endeavour is introducing a set of standardised guide dog regulations throughout Europe, both for users and the organisations, such as convincing airlines that guide dogs are safe in cabins.

Today, Stan’s team work from resource centres. Their achievements are endless: they have the biggest Braille library in Romania, they teach sign language and computer skills. The team visits schools for the visually impaired across Romania – they assess each child, supply Braille books, rewrite school books according to an individual’s needs. They’ve achieved masses but there is still a massive challenge: there are 85,000 registered blind persons in Romania and currently only 11 guide dogs (all provided by Light Into Europe). It takes approximately 18 months to train a guide dog. Stan’s ambition is to get 50 guide dogs on the streets of Bucharest within the next 5 years. I have no doubt he will reach this goal!

Sponsorship is key for Light Into Europe – apart from the Caledonian Ball in Bucharest and other functions he tirelessly organises, Stan has arranged for Veritas to pay the salary of a young deaf lady to train as a guide dog instructor. Most donations come from within Romania.

From the first moment I met Stan Platt I sensed he was a man of honour, putting others before himself. He received an OBE recently and immediately shared it with his team at Light Into Europe.

Stan is a GREAT Briton in Romania.

Ian Saunders
Regional Attache
British Embassy Bucharest