Moldovan families hosting refugees to benefit from new financial assistance

Chisinau, 3 June /MOLDPRES/ - The second round of financial assistance will be provided by the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) to the families from Moldova which host refugees from Ukraine, in order to help them reduce the burden of the additional costs dealing with food products and other essential needs, the Labour and Social Protection Ministry has reported.   

The second round will regard the already registered households, which received financial assistance in the first round, as well as new families which presently host two or more refugees for more than one week.   

According to WFP representatives, initially, the intention was to  provide a one-off financial assistance; yet, the assessments made in households, following the first round, showed that the residents have higher costs for the basic needs and, to this end, support is necessary in continuation. ‘’Our goal is to make sure that the families from Moldova have support to meet the essential needs, including the food ones,’’ the head of the WFP Office, in Moldova, Douglas Mercado, said.    

In the first round, at least 10,471 families of Moldova received financial assistance worth 3,500 lei (190 dollars), transferred to them on the period April-Mai 2022. The second round of the same sum (3,500 lei) is scheduled for the last week of June. The already registered and then validated families will receive an SMS each from Western Union, thereby they will be informed to raise the second round of cash from the nearest branch. The families will have at their disposal 30 days to raise the sum.

In the Chisinau city, the new or non-registered host families can use the online registration portal www.UAHelp.md, where both the host family head and the refugee/refugees must register, the latter using the same code at the online registration as their host. In other regions of Moldova, families will be registered personally at the settlements’ mayoralties on the period 6-20 June.   

The programme of financial assistance, launched on 25 March 2022, in cooperation with the Labour and Social Protection Ministry, UN Refugee Agency (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)) and other cooperation partners, is part of WFP’s response to the crisis from Ukraine in Moldova, in order to attenuate the financial stress on the government and the host families.  

Photo: dw.com