Summer School for refugee and asylum seeker children

     In July 2014, the Charity Centre for Refugees, an implementing partner of UNHCR Moldova, gave start to the Summer School for refugee/asylum seeker children. This initiative aims to expand speech and Arabic language skills, to inspire and motivate towards creativity, art, music, history, multicultural background.

  Every Tuesday and Thursday, refugee/asylum seeker children have a programme with diverse activities. The day of the Summer School starts at 10 a.m. in the morning with Arabic language lessons given by Mrs. Amalid Karim, a refugee who worked as a teacher at primary and secondary school in Iraq. These lessons seek to boost the level of Arabic language in written and oral forms. But the most important is to help children not to forget their mother tongue, because may be one day they will have opportunity to return back to the country they were forced to leave. Besides that, children enjoy studying music taught by Mrs. Dima Deiri, a refugee from Syria. While participating in music activities, children are enhancing language and social-emotional development and increasing musical skills and knowledge.

      With the help of local and EVS volunteers, refugee/asylum seeker children have art lessons, where they express inspiration and creativity. During art activities, children make greeting cards, paint ‘mandalas’, create towns in 3D format, etc. Moreover, children and their parents have opportunity to watch films, cartoons or play different games. CCR is happy to see that children have fun creating and learning new things together at the Summer School.  The School day ends with some refreshments.

Dear Mr. Djavid Paknehad,

CCR team, local and European volunteers, refugee/asylum seeker children wish you days filled with much love, many wonderful surprises and lasting memories that will cherish many years ahead.

Refugee and asylum seeker children together with local and European volunteers prepared a special Birthday gift – a handmade postcard with messages written in different languages (Arabic, Romanian, Russian, Estonian, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Armenian) and a ‘Happy Birthday’ song.

La multi ani!

Sincerely,

CCR team, local and European volunteers, refugee/asylum seeker children

Austrian Experience of Migrants' Integration for Ukraine and Moldova

23 – 26 June 2014, representatives of state authorities and civil society organizations from Ukraine and Moldova went on the migrants integration study visit to Austria. The Ukrainian delegation consisted of senior officials from the Ombudsman Office, the State Migration Service and the NGO “African Council in Ukraine”. Moldova was represented by officials of the Bureau for Migration and Asylum, the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family as well as the NGO “Charity Center for Refugees”. The visit was co-organized by the IOM Country office in Austria and provided an excellent opportunity for the guests to find out more about the work of the key institutions in the integration policy and practice of the country, including the federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs, the Austrian Integration Fund, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, the Vienna City Council, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the NGO “Integration House” and Caritas Austria.

World Refugee Day in the Republic of Moldova 2014

        Every year on 20th of June, more than one hundred countries commemorate World Refugee Day. Thousands of people around the world take time to commiserate with forcibly displaced person, who fled across the border and were torn apart from their families. In the Republic of Moldova, this important Day has been commemorated since 2001, when Moldova acceded to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and assumed the commitment to protect people, who were forced to leave their homes. On this occasion, UNHCR Moldova and its NGO implementing partners, together with the Bureau for Migration and Asylum put all their efforts to arrange a memorable day for PoCs and raise awareness about the growing number of refugees in Moldova and all over the world.

        World Refugee Day and commemoration of Convention took place on 19th of June 2014 at the Temporary Accommodation Centre and on 20th of June 2014 in the Stefan Cel Mare Central Park of Chisinau.  BMA and UNHCR Moldova together with its implementing partners organised a wide variety of activities under the slogan “A family torn apart by war is too many”. Visitors could read stories of the refugees in Moldova from the exhibition of photos. There was a possibility to play a table game called ‘Refugee Journey’ – the long journey of a refugee towards a safe place. Besides that, members of the public could enjoy tasting oriental
food: Uzbek pilaf and dessert ‘ChakChak’, Syrian round shaped cakes with meat ‘kebe’ and dessert ‘akras bi ajwe’, Shaorma etc. The dishes were prepared by refugees themselves.

A wonderful day at the Chisinau Botanic Garden – 17th May 2014

           Spring is one of the best seasons of the year to spend some time outdoors enjoying the weather, beautiful blossom of trees and flowers.  For that reason, the Charity Centre for Refugees (CCR), an implementing partner of UNHCR Moldova, together with the Temporary Accommodation Centre administration decided to offer a great day out to asylum seekers and invited them to the Chisinau Botanic Garden.

     With plants from all over the world displayed in a 76-acre oasis of gardens and glasshouses, the Chisinau Botanic Garden is an inspiration for gardeners and an exciting introduction to the natural world for visitors.  Many asylum seekers have not even heard about this place, so they had opportunity to explore the world of plants and history of magnificent Chisinau Botanic Garden with one of the guides.