specific needs of children and elderly left behind as a ... - IOM Moldova

Values and life plans
Extremely marked is the hope of the elderly regarding the return of
their children and bringing back the normal life they had lead before
the departure: “I would like them to stay there for 2-3 more years
and to come back home for good... She wants to earn money for her children...at
least 5000 Euros for every child in order to have the possibility
to pay for their education or medicine and to feel safe” (III_E_9); “I
would like my children to live in the village and to see my grandchildren
married, to have an easy life and then I’ll be good too” (FG_E_4_rural_
asylum). For the institutionalized elderly placed it is extremely important
to be able to come back home: “...I’m thinking of going home,
to die in my house”, although there is no possibility.
The study unveils the pessimistic attitude of the elderly dominated
by fatal thoughts: “I wait for the holy death what should I desire more
if I am 77 years old in summer” (III_E_16); “I am ill, I can’t see and it
grieves me deeply”; “I wish to die soon as I cannot accept at all the fact
that I am old” (FG_E_4_rural_asylum).
At the same time, the elderly look at free movement across the borders
and they believe in change and in the economical development
of the country: “To live at peace and to tell the truth and to make
order in this Bassarabian country as only then we will receive big pensions
and salaries”(III_E_19); “To have free political access and to have
the possibility to visit them and to make a surprise for them” (III_E_1);
“I think those who left abroad would come back if the government provides
them with jobs” (FG_E_4_rural_asylum).
BOX 17
The opinion about the future of an old person whose
children migrated abroad for work (III_E_23)
“I’ve said it many times... If I had to choose again my way in life I would have
become a teacher because I like working with children... First of all, I would
do everything to have a beautiful village and to provide conditions for people
to live better, to have jobs and not to be forced to go abroad, but to
work all together in the native village… We are confronted with many obstacles,
deficiency, the roads are bad and people also are meaner when the
situation is difficult, everyone becomes nervous, greedy... It’s a continuous
struggle for us to heap up riches but we can’t be all billionaires as we’ll be
all equal… The society is divided into the rich and the poor and everyone
should have a limit…those who have money should give it to the others
as Jesus Christ said…But everyone provides for oneself… Those who have
migrated are young and had just got married…many of those remaining
in the country can’t even afford basic necessities…and they compare their
condition with those who migrated abroad and bought a car or a house,
some of them are repairing their houses…If I were young I would also go to
work abroad to provide for my family…”
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