Youth with disabilities feed their dreams through rehabilitation programmes provided by Moldova AID

Moldova AID, based in Rîșcani, is committed to promoting the rights of young people and children with disabilities. They do this through educational and behavioural programmes, which they provide free of charge at their ‘Phoenix’ rehabilitation and day-care centre for children and youth with disabilities. The organisation received financial support to cover core costs through the COVID-19: Civil Society Resilience and Sustainability project, financed by the European Union, and, as a result, was able to continue their work.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic Moldova AID was forced to temporarily suspend their activities and shut down the Phoenix centre. Furthermore, as an organisation that relies heavily on fundraising and social entrepreneurship, the lack of opportunities to raise money meant that they had no choice but to terminate contracts with five employees. Core support provided under the project allowed them to resume their activities and allowed the organisation to continue paying salaries.

This had a big impact. Between September 2020 and August 2021, Moldova AID provided rehabilitation services to 23 young people. Their specialists gave 80 massage and physiotherapy sessions, 50 speech therapy sessions, and 30 sensory psychotherapy sessions. They also provided activities and lessons in topics such as cooking, crafts and how to use a computer, with the aim of helping children and young people to make friends, communicate, and develop life skills.

“Here I started to relax my muscles, before they were tighter than now. I really like to do physical therapy, to do different exercises, massage. My biggest dream is to be able to stand up and walk”, Alexandru, 19 years old, has been coming to the Phoenix centre since its reopening and he received 20 physiotherapy and massage procedures in one year.