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

CHAPTER II
the beneficiary once every two days but when they have an urgent need for
medicine they’ll call their neighbour and ask for help. But it is more difficult
to find a neighbour when you live in a flat” (FG_EE_urban). The support
provided to the elderly by social workers is seen and accepted very differently
by migrant children: “none of them refused help”, “accept those
who have”, “they have been abroad, have received I don’t know how much
money, returned back to the country trying to look important....that her
mother is confined to bed and needs an orthopaedic bed, but we don’t have it
and she threatens us she will write a petition to the minister in order to solve
the situation....they compare the situation in our country with the one existing
abroad but there the services are against payment” (FG_EE_urban_rural).
Often children/labour migrants do not realize the fact that “they work
abroad and do not pay taxes in our country but ask for the same services”,
in this way “ the social assistance that does not provide adequate services is
considered guilty” (FG_EE_urban_rural).
In their turn, social assistants and social workers are concerned with
obstacles they meet in providing services “the access is difficult, the
wage is small, we lack even slippers”, lack of equipment or misunderstandings
in the job description: “a social assistant should have a tonometer
because when he/she visits the beneficiary, he/she also has to check the
blood pressure”, “the social assistant should also be a good doctor and a
psychologist” (FG_EE_urban_rural).
Social canteen services offer food to vulnerable people. This service is
mostly funded from the local budget, from subsidies given by the Republican
Population Fund for Social Support, from private donations as well
as by non-governmental organizations: ”we give food to 100 people monthly
and they change each month, we have 3 canteens subsidized by the social
fund” (FG_EE_urban). But we have to stress that these services are designed
for “lonely people”, “who receive a pension of 500-600 lei, those who
have no relatives since their childhood, socially vulnerable people or families
who have 2 children and have nothing to eat. Those who have children
abroad don’t come”(FG_EE_urban_rural). This is explained by the strict
functioning rules of this service but also by the nature of the elderly:
“they come rarely, maybe 1-2 persons...It is also about the pride...Why people
in the village would say that my children are abroad but I eat at the canteen?
That is why many refuse. We bring them examples that they are not the only
people who eat at the canteen but this thought is nagging at them” (FG_EE_
urban_rural). In general the beneficiaries of these services are satisfied
with its quality but “there are people who do not like the food, we have an old
woman who always complains, it doesn’t matter whether it is in the morning,
afternoon or in the evening, she doesn’t like the food” (FG_EE_urban). The
interviewed experts think that these kind of people had a good life and
now they can’t adjust to the changes.
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