NGO opens Bucharest centre of integrated services for children, parents from Ukraine

The Save the Children Romania organisation opened on Monday in Bucharest a centre for counselling and integrated services for children and parents from Ukraine.

"The centre provides several types of services, primarily counselling and information in all areas useful to Ukrainians - legal, labour market, education, healthcare, (...) it offers guidance in their mother tongue, (...) it also offers services for children, teenagers, adults, Romanian language courses, playgrounds for children, support in non-food goods, in vouchers for the winter. We have prepared and just today we have released RON 600 vouchers for people with children and relatives to buy winter clothes, winter shoes during this period, orientation and contact with schools, doctors and so on," according to Save the Children Romania Executive Officer Gabriela Alexandrescu.

According to her, the facility located on Strada Matei Basarab is open Monday to Friday, 09:00hrs to 17:00hrs, and the team there consists of 35 specialists.

Seven similar facilities are also operating in Iasi, Suceava, Baia Mare, Tulcea, Galati, Timisoara and Targu Mures.

Alexandrescu said that, so far, Save the Children has assisted more than 215,600 Ukrainians, including approximately 117,000 children.

Officials of the organisation are present at four border crossing points - Isaccea, Tulcea County; Siret, Suceava County; Sighetu Marmatiei, Maramures County; Sculeni, Iasi County; in five centres of accommodation and procedures for asylum seekers in Radauti, Suceava County; Galati, Galati County; Somcuta Mare, Maramures County; Timisoara, Timis County, and Bucharest; in three mobile camps of the General Emergency Management Inspectorate in Siret, Radauti, Suceava County, and Husi, Vaslui County; in three parking areas, two day care centres, 13 schools in the country. There is also a mobile kitchen at Isaccea.

Madalina Turza, senior adviser with the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, pointed out that the biggest challenges are faced by the vulnerable people in Ukraine - the elderly, people with disabilities, where the Romanian system is "weak" and has "limitations."

"That includes the area of education, where there are still certain challenges, (...) they are doubled by a certain reservation on the part of Ukrainian mothers to enroll their children in Romanian schools, mainly due to the fact that their studies in Romania are not recognised by the Ukrainian Government," added Turza.

An international study reveals that half of the children feel more restless since fleeing Ukraine, with 78% of those aged over 16 years feeling the same, according to Save the Children. AGERPRES