Teleleu

Teleleu is the passion project of a couple, a journalist and a photojournalist, who has been living in a camper van for the last nine years (2013 - 2022), documenting stories of the Romanian diaspora all over Europe.

In 2013, they quit their jobs in fashion/advertising after being awarded the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism, which focused on a large-scale project on the culture of violence in Romania.

They moved into a second-hand campervan, slashed their living costs, and started to live off journalism grants and donations from readers, to whom they send monthly postcards and letters from the places they visit.

Teleleu's readership has grown over the years; they currently have about 200 active subscribers to the postcards and letters on Patreon and PayPal. They can live and work from projects on a monthly budget of 2,000- 2,500 euros. They rely on donations and fellowships, such as a $5,000 grant from the Pulitzer Center they received in 2022.

They have published dozens of features on domestic violence, extreme poverty, life in Romanian prisons, the drug crisis in Romanian hospitals, and the ethnic minorities in Romania: Ukrainians, Lipovans, Hungarians, and Roma people.

Last updated: January 2023

Last updated date: March 2023