Emergency Response & Recovery
One of the pillars of PIN Moldova's work is helping people affected by crises that require immediate response and long-term recovery. Wars, pandemics, economic crises and natural disasters are just some of the circumstances that can directly and significantly affect the quality of life of disadvantaged people, and we aim to stand by these people, both through humanitarian aid and through projects that help them better integrate into society, become more attractive to the labour market and become resilient to challenges.
The Republic of Moldova is currently facing an exponential increase in the number of crises requiring immediate response. In recent years, the vulnerable population has had to cope with a wave of inflation, which have affected their ability to cover their living costs from their modest income. Pandemics, the economic crisis and the energy crisis have made them increasingly vulnerable. Moreover, the war unleashed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine has generated a large wave of refugees, many of them crossing the territory of the Republic of Moldova. Of these, many families have stayed in Moldova, in search of a safer life.
We were and are ready to face theese challenges. Since the start of the war, the need to provide humanitarian aid has increased considerably. We stand by the volunteers and organisations that deliver this aid and provide emotional support to vulnerable populations. Together we can make the world a better place, and it is PIN Moldova's mission to make sure that everyone can enjoy it.
Ongoing ActivitiesORPast Activities
CASH: Cash Based Transfers programme to Refugees and Moldovan households hosting refugees
PIN seeks to address the basic needs of the most vulnerable refugees and host communities in the country through an integrated response that puts protection and safeguarding at the center while reinforcing integration and social cohesion.
More specifically, this action will support refugee households living outside official RACs to cover their basic needs, as well as the winter needs of households hosting refugees affected by the energy crisis through multi-purpose cash assistance.
Overall, the response will target a total of 1,600 hosting households, reaching an estimated 3,680 vulnerable individuals.
PLACE: Providing a multi-sectoral humanitarian response to Ukrainian refugees and vulnerable Moldovan households
PLACE is a project delivering cash for rent, legal assistance and counselling as well as protection services for Ukrainians in Moldova. PiN’s main focus in this consortium is on comprehensive protection activities, particularly the provision of psychosocial support (PSS) services through several channels to improve people’s psychosocial wellbeing after experiencing adverse events or traumatic incidents, namely prolonged displacement and armed conflict. PiN implements protection activities directly as well as through partnerships with local CSOs in northern and southern Moldova.
The first of PiN’s activities is to establish a multi-layered referral mechanism in southern Moldova (based on the IFRC’s MHPSS pyramid) through an assigned professional focal point and with support from partner CSOs to ensure people in need of specialized mental health care are referred to the appropriate actors or treatment centers.
Secondly, PiN conducts protection activities for refugees and host communities targeting women, children, elderly people, and people with special needs and mobility issues. The activities include the provision of PSS through in-person individual and group counselling as well as social cohesion activities (such as language courses, artisanal workshops, cultural exchanges, etc.). Aside from on-site therapy, PIN’s partner CSOs dispatch mobile units to deliver emergency psychological assistance to vulnerable groups in refugee accommodation centers (RACs) and in hosting households.
As part of its child protection and social cohesion activities, PiN also manages two Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) to support the holistic wellbeing and the safe emotional development and learning between Ukrainian and Moldovan children.
Lastly, PiN monitors a 24/7 hotline service to provide immediate crisis support and counselling through SMS texting and telephone calls. The hotline is managed by 4 psychologists that deliver PSS in Romanian, Ukrainian and/or Russian. The hotline’s office, based in Chisinau, is a complement to the rest of the protection activities and is available to all beneficiaries, but especially those that are on the move or residing in remote locations all over Moldova. Thus, PiN’s activities mainstream social cohesion by assisting both Ukrainian refugees and Moldovan hosting communities.
BRICKSS: Building resilience in children through knowledge and social skills
BRICKSS is a pilot child protection and education in emergencies project funded by PiN. Its aim is to address the education needs of Ukrainian refugee children in Moldova. The main area of intervention focuses on the creation of a digital learning center and a child friendly space, ensuring continuity of education and access to psychosocial support for refugee and host community children.
The digital learning centre (DLC) provides children with a location where they can access formal MoE online learning through the All Ukrainian Online School platform during school hours. The DLC is a lab equipped with furniture, safety materials, teaching and learning materials, as well as laptops pre-loaded with safety software for children’s protected access to the Internet. Trained facilitators (some of them former Ukrainian teachers) are present in the DLC to oversee the children’s studies and provide them with some extra in-person support to improve learning outcomes.
In the afternoons, children have access to Social Emotional Learning (SEL) lessons and recreational activities, supported by trained staff in a child friendly space (CFS). The spaces are secure and suitable for learning and wellbeing activities for children from 6-14 years old in after school sessions that are structured around the IRC’s Safe and Healing Learning Spaces SEL curriculum. The key aim of the SEL curriculum is to strengthen 5 core SEL competencies: brain building, Emotion Regulation, Positive Social Skills, Conflict Resolution and Perseverance of children aged 6-12 years old. The curriculum provides 9 months' worth of lessons broken down into three, 2-hour lessons per week.
ACCESS VI: Provision of multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance to conflict-affected populations in Ukraine and Moldova
Regarding its MPCA activities, PIN distributed one-off cash disbursements to over 1,000 targeted households hosting at least two displaced individuals from Ukraine for a minimum period of one week. The goal of the assistance was to help households meet the costs for food and utility payments, basic home equipment and other urgent needs through the Moldovan postal service.
At the same time, PiN through partner CSOs operated a PSS hotline in June 2022 supported by an online platform offering free PSS consultations to refugees. Consultations were provided by qualified psychologists, including requests for repeat consultations. CSO partners also operated mobile PSS units to provide legal and psychosocial consultations to beneficiaries in the northern and southern districts. Both CSOs had experience in mobile outreach and were able to cover hard to reach areas, including distant villages, formal and informal refugee accommodation centers.
This intervention ended activities in April 2023.
Supporting together the vulnerable population affected by the energy crisis
This intervention ended in April 2023.
Eastern Partnership - COVID-19 Solidarity Programme
COVID-19 Response: Helping people with disabilities cope with the pandemic
This intervention ended activities in December 2020.