Former institutionalized children complain they don't get their welfare money

Twenty formerly institutionalized orphan children from across the country, who have benefited from various activities organized by Amici dei Bambini in Moldova over the last year, gathered together on Friday in Chisinau to share their everyday problems and concerns. According to Stela Vasluian, director of Amici dei Bambini in Moldova, the beneficiaries are the children from residential schools who are in a high-risk group but who are promising. “Unfortunately, no one really cares about the situation of the former institutionalized children. Once they're out of their residential institutions, there's no one to lend a helping hand or open new doors for them”, Stela Vasluian told Info-Prim Neo. The children lament the strained circumstances they find themselves in once they leave the boarding schools, and also the lack of interest on the part of the authorities in helping them obtain documents that would confirm their status of orphans, which in turn, could help them obtain a home. Alexei, a young man from Falesti, said that despite possessing all the papers he need to receive social welfare, he doesn't get it. “I have many a time appealed to the town hall and the district council for assistance and they all promised to help me. Yet my problem is still unsolved and there are many classmates in the same situation”, said Alexei. “We are not asking for a big pot of money, just the amount we need to go to school, to survive”, said he, adding that some of his classmates abandoned school because of the strained circumstances. Attending the meeting, the representative of Chisinau’s Children Rights Protection Division, Ana Cusnir, said the municipality lacks the necessary tools to intervene in the cases which happen outside of the city. She advised the children from the country's districts who asked the Chisinau authorities for housing to readdress their appeal to the local authorities, because the lists of home seekers are usually significantly shorter and the chances of getting a home there are higher than in Chisinau. At the same time, Grigore Tapu, doctor of psychology, advised the children to try to get a temporary job, “because the money from the state, even if dispensed, is very little”. To attend the meeting were also invited Minister of Family and Children Galina Balmos and Minister of Education and Youth Larisa Savga, but both failed to do so.