US volunteers distribute shoes to Moldovan social shelters

Over 11,000 people residing in social shelters in Moldova will get free winter footwear. The donation worth $250,000 has been offered by the charity foundation “Children's Emergency Relief International” from US and will be distributed, during three weeks, to orphanages and asylums. Constanta Belciug, a representative of Children's Emergency Relief International in Moldova, has told Info-Prim Neo the project has run in Moldova since 1999, once in two years. “Everything began in 1999, when the executive manager of the foundation was for the first time in Moldova, visited an orphanage and saw the little ones with their feet frozen. Since then the donations have become a tradition. Over 20 volunteers from America go and distribute the winter footwear,” Belciug said. A pair of shoes is some $14.25. Constanta Belciug says the boots are shipped from over the Ocean because “the footwear costs more here.” The foundation gives footwear to and winter socks to all the residents of social shelters subordinated to the Moldovan Social Protection Ministry and to the Education and Youth Ministry. According to the Social Protection Ministry's press officer, Elena Capatana, the ministry offers the foundation information about each resident. The schoolmaster of the psycho-neurological asylum form Badiceni, Soroca district, Ion Gulica, has told Info-Prim Neo that he is “satisfied with the quality of the footwear, and those 478 residents wear it gladly.” Elizaveta Iacub, the schoolmistress of retarded children orphanage from Hancesti, boarding 348 children, says they get the foundation's assistance for several years. “The children like it when the boots are of different colors,” she said. “The consign is a swim ring for us. The money we save we use to buy summer footwear, for instance,” the schoolmistress said. “We have shoes that we buy from the state's money. But we have to offer the lowest price in public procurements, and the lowest price means lowest quality,” Elizaveta Iacub explained. The Moldovan branch of Children's Emergency Relief International was registered by the Justice Ministry in 2001. It carries out other projects, too, as switching children from orphanages to families, financial and psychological support for children in boarding schools after leaving the for higher education institutions.