An EU-funded program of grants for creating or extending social services at the local level to the value of €1.5 million will be launched this August. The goal of the project is to strengthen civil society organizations’ capacities to implement innovatory services in partnership with the central and local public authorities. It is expected that the social inclusion of persons with mental disabilities and children from socially deprived groups will be thus improved.
Keystone Moldova is one of the organizations that implement this project. Contacted by IPN, Parascovia Munteanu, social assistance community services manager at this organization, said financing will be provided for projects designed to support the deinstitutionalization and prevention of institutionalization of persons with disabilities and to back the development, extension and improvement of social services intended for children from vulnerable groups.
Civil society organizations are now being prepared for taking part in the contest of grants that will be held by Soros Foundation Moldova with the financial support of the EU. Training seminars were staged in Balti for the organizations from northern districts, in Cahul for those from the southern districts and in Chisinau for those from the central region.
The services that the associations are to develop or extend will be financed with funds from the budget of the territorial-administrative unit or the budget of residential institutions as of 2020. That’s why the implementing associations lay emphasis on the establishment of the partnership and facilitation of the dialogue between civil society organizations and public authorities in developing sustainable social services.
Of the total budget of the project, €800,000 will go to finance projects that support the deinstitutionalization and prevention of institutionalization of persons with disabilities, while €700,000 is intended for projects that support the development, extension and improvement of social services for children from vulnerable groups.
The associations that coordinate the implementation of the project are: Soros Foundation Moldova, Keystone Moldova, the Alliance of Organizations for Persons with Disabilities and the Alliance of NGOs Active in the Field of Social Protection of the Child and Family.
