"We miss our parents, they live too far away from the residential school", says a girl who attends one of the residential schools of Ungheni raion

On 25th of June this year an information seminar for local and central mass media representatives, interested in social issues, was organized. At the seminar, the main project partners informed the journalists about the main objectives of the reform and about its implementation steps.
Valentin Crudu, Head of pre-school, elementary, and secondary education Department of the Ministry of Education, said that prevention of child institutionalization, development of alternative care services, reorganization of the residential care system, and retargeting of human resources, are the main objectives in this project.
Stela Grigoras, EveryChild Moldova Director, said that to reach this goal, a model of transformation of the three institutions included in the project is to be developed, retargeting the potential of their teachers to the community mainstream schools, and changing the attitude of the society to the issue of marginalization and exclusion of children from poor and vulnerable families. “We have to include the children with special needs into the society, so that later on they become ready to enter real life”, said Iraida Binzari, depute president of Falesti raion. She also gave an example of three children from the residential school, who were transferred into a lyceum in the raion centre. At the end of their studies, the children had very good school records, and their teachers were satisfied with their abilities.
“We miss our parents. We cannot see them often, because they live far away from the residential school. We miss home”, said Alina, a girl from one of the auxiliary residential schools.
“A child has the right to grow up in a family, to learn together with his relatives, neighbours, friends. We should not isolate them from the society”, says Viorica Dumbraveanu, head of Child and Family Protection Department of the Ministry of Labour, Social Protection, and Family.
The project “Ensuring the child’s right to a family, and ensuring child’s protection from violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation” is financially supported by UNICEF, and implemented by EveryChild Moldova, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labour, Social Protection, and Family at central level, and with raion councils of Ungheni and Falesti, at local level. Activities within the project were implemented in June in several directions: LPA capacity-building, evaluation of institutions involved in the reorganization project, and public awareness raising on the evolution of the problem.
Thus, in the 3 residential institutions from Falesti and Ungheni raions where EvCM is working, the evaluation process was launched, including evaluation of children, human and financial resources, and mapping of community social services. The staffs of the institutions were trained in Change Management, and LPA capacity was built in policies and standards of child participation in decision-making. Within the project, EveryChild will work with central and local authorities, and with service providers, to support them in the implementation of the National Strategy of residential childcare system reform, and in the implementation of the General Plan of residential institutions reorganization. The project includes the reorganization of three auxiliary schools in Falesti and Ungheni raions, as well as development of community-based services to ensure child’s growing in the family or in a family-type environment.