Abstract
This article presents key findings from a study conducted from 2017 to 2024 to validate the educational and social project “L.I.F.T. – Lernen.Integration.Förderung. Tagesbetreuung” in Dumbrăveni, Transylvania, which was started by Diakonie International in 2016. The study was based on an innovative heuristic called Existential Poverty, which applies key elements of the psychotherapeutic theoretical school of existential analysis and logotherapy to poverty research. Central to this is the interpretation of the structural model of existence with its four basic dimensions and the prerequisites for personal action formulated, which can be deprived for socio-pathological reasons of poverty and social exclusion. On this basis, it is possible both to decipher the poverty-induced living environment of the children who attend the facility and to describe and evaluate the compensatory effects of the services provided by the validated day center.