Amici dei Bambini raises funds to open way in life to orphan children

“Amici dei Bambini collected 24,000 lei to help 20 orphan children to start their way in life. The Moldovan branch of the Italian non-governmental organization Amici dei Bambini staged a concert on October 13 at Chisinau's Philharmonics as an exhibition was held in its hall selling embroideries made by children from orphanages. The branch director, Stela Vasluian, told a news conference in the quarters of Info-Prim Neo, Tuesday, November 18, that all the collected funds will be used to help the adolescents finishing 5 boarding schools from Moldova. Attending the conference, Stefan Panfil and Ecaterina Panus – two of those twenty children who'll benefit from the support – have said Amici dei Bambini “helped them with social, psychological, and financial services.” “Representatives of the NGO went to schools and selected students eager to become members of the organization. They has helped us to choose a profession,” Ecaterina Panus said. Stefan Panfil explains the concrete help consists in easing the issuance of documents necessary to enter colleges. Those documents enable them to benefit from scholarships dedicated to orphans. The raised money will be used to pay for their education contracts, places in dormitories and other needs. “We know we are helped to help others,” Stefan Panfil said referring to his colleagues. The conference was attended by the music stars Geta Burlacu and Adrian Ursu who had performed at the concert in the Philharmonics. They were very proud of the gifts received from children: toy-swans of different colors. Adrian Ursu says he enjoys singing for orphan children, but criticized organizations which do not use the money fairly and transparently, but gave no names. The Moldovan branch of Amici dei Bambini aims at offering a family to any abandoned child and to guarantee him the right to live in family. Concretely, the organization offers psychological advice to the abandoned children. “The situation of the children suffering from the abandonment is difficult, but their problems need urgent solutions. The people having lived in boarding schools, when finishing those, are to live in a reality they don't know, they need to build a future for themselves, but do not know how to do to it,” reads a communique by the NGO. That is why, Amici dei Bambini organizes teams of volunteers and prepares them for the life outside the institutions.