On 16 March, ICMPD organised a workshop for Moldovan stakeholders as part of the project “Capacity for a Rights-Based Reception System for Moldova” (CareFor) to exchange experience on rendering psychological services to the residents of the two temporary accommodation centres managed by the Inspectorate-General for Migration. The workshop gathered representatives of relevant public authorities, NGOs, project partners, ICMPD expert and project team.
The Inspectorate-General for Migration runs two temporary accommodation centres in Chisinau. The Refugee Accommodation Centre hosts asylum seekers waiting for their protection granting decision. The Migrants Accommodation Centre is a public custody facility that hosts foreigners waiting for their return back home. Due to various circumstances, including difficulties related to proper documentation, their waiting in both Centres can last for months. This poses risks to the mental health and well-being of the residents. Thanks to the CareFor project, both Centres benefited from regular psychological counselling for almost a year now.
The objective of the workshop was to share this newly acquired experience and lessons learned with the wider community of relevant actors, including the Ombudsman Office that had been flagging the need for psychological services, the NGO Law Centre of Advocates that is rendering legal services at both Centres, and the National Congress of Ukrainians in Moldova that runs a similar non-governmental reception centre since the war in neighbouring Ukraine. Discussions triggered topics such as the specifics of working with foreigners such as language and cultural barriers, referral to other services such as legal or medical, the need for basic psychology training for the Centres’ staff and volunteers, and confidentiality and incident reporting duties. The workshop also aimed to present a series of specific tools, techniques, and templates developed by the project psychologist throughout her assignment with the view to be further used by the beneficiaries after the project's completion.
The CareFor project, funded by the Polish Ministry of the Interior and Administration, aims to contribute to a functioning and human-rights compliant migration management system in Moldova while also addressing some of the more immediate needs caused by the unprecedented inflow of displaced people from Ukraine.