Moldova is a small Eastern European country, a former Soviet republic whose economy collapsed when the USSR did. It's now one of the poorest countries in Europe, and unemployment is rampant. A lot of parents leave young children with their grandparents and go abroad to countries like Russia to find work. Sometimes the grandparents or other relatives aren't able to take care of them.
So there are a lot of "social orphans," children whose parents are alive but who are pretty much on their own a lot. They're not always looked after properly in terms of food and clothing, and they don't always want to go to school very much — unless they can get food there.
Especially in rural villages, money for food is very tight. Sister Maria's center is unusual in offering the amount of food it does.
The worst-case scenario for impoverished children in Moldova isn't just going hungry, which would be bad enough. Sometimes vulnerable children are targeted by human traffickers who basically abduct them, take them to another country, and force them to beg. The trafficker keeps the money. An anti-trafficking group called La Strada told me about a four-year-old Moldovan boy who was trafficked into begging in Poland. The risks for these children are really high.
So there are tens of thousands of needy children in Moldova, and things would really turn around if they all had access to a safe place to eat, learn and play like Sister Maria's.
How can someone help out Sister Maria Tolledo's Day Care Center or other programs in Moldova?
To help Sister Maria, people can contribute to the Sisters of Saint John the Baptist, PO Box 711, Gladstone, NJ 07934 and specify "Balti, Moldova." Also, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the International Organization for Migration, and other groups are working to stop human trafficking or provide job options for poor people in Moldova. People can contribute to CRS at their website.
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