The social campaign “Purpose of Lent” that was conducted by the organization Child, Community, Family (CCF Moldova) for the fourth year collected over 62,000 lei during seven weeks, with the assistance of 164 persons who donated their virtual meals in the restaurant www.rostulpostului.md, converted into real money. These financial resources help the public association to reach out to as many children who need help as possible, IPN reports.
The campaign that is traditionally launched on the first day of Lent, this year on March 2, ended together with the biggest feast day of the year, Easter. According to CCF Moldova, the goal of this social effort is to persuade everyone to also have another purpose, which means good deeds in support of children from poor families, who go to sleep hungry night by night.
In a press release, the association makes reference to statistics according to which in Moldova there are 590,000 children and each eighth child of these suffer from poverty. Also, each fifth child has one of both of the parents abroad. “While the campaign was at its peak, we found ourselves seriously affected by a global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that in the long run affects all the systems: medical, social, humanitarian, economic etc. Owing to the pandemic, the situation of vulnerable families becomes much more difficult. If the family can no longer cope with the needs, the children risk being separated from the close ones and placed in residential institutions (orphanages), where they will have what to eat, but will not have the parental affection. Besides, the risk of infection is also high,” reads the press release.
In the pandemic situation, the team of CCF Moldova changed its priorities. The association is contacted by an increasing number of families that reach the poverty line and the interventions turn into emergency aid for now.
“These families lived in a kind of pandemic of poverty, deficiency, unrealized rights, marginalization until now too, but now COVID-19 exerts even greater pressure on them. These families that have no supplies, no money, no foods products, effectively nothing have to now cope with social challenges of distancing, isolation, fear and anxiety, physical or physiological problems, which is hygiene products, lack of water and the educational situation as the children do not have access to education,” said CCF/HHC Moldova president Liliana Rotaru.
The association said that as the previous years, it will buy not only food products, but also domestic animals and crops.
