Building Resilience in Vulnerable Communities

Building Resilience

in Vulnerable Communities

Social change and inclusion in Moldova

“Moldova is seen by many of its young people as a kind of bus station, somewhere you wait for an opportunity to leave”

Serghei Mihailov, Executive Director of Beginning of Life.

Moldova is a small country facing big problems. High unemployment, poor prospects for young people and political uncertainty have led a high number of citizens to seek work abroad. Many thousands of children live without parents present for the majority of their childhoods. The cohesion that communities need has been broken down, and the link between one generation and the next is missing. This is leaving young people with very little in the way of a future to look forward to, vulnerable to poverty and to those that would exploit them.

The Building Resilience in Vulnerable Communities (BRVC) programme ran over five years from summer 2021, with the aim of beginning the transformation of the prospects of these children and young people.

From March 2022, Moldova faced a new challenge: The integration of 100,000+ mainly women and children who fled the war in Ukraine. These vulnerable families also benefited from the BRVC programme.

House of Opportunity and partners Beginning of Life officially launched the BRVC programme to the Moldovan public on Oct 13th 2022, in Chișinău.

A three-part programme

The BRVC programme brought experience and practice from across the House of Opportunity network to bear on a particular set of challenges. Broadley, it worked at three levels:

Vulnerable age groups:

Way to Success

A nationwide programme designed to give young people the tools they will need to become successful adults. Delivered as part of the public school curriculum for teenagers.

Vulnerable communities:

Early Development Centres

Enabling children with limited or no parental input to access education. Offering family support programmes for single parents and carers, and art therapy.

Vulnerable individuals:

House of Opportunity

Combating exploitation and trafficking and preventing poverty among at-risk young people, especially those leaving state and foster care, through residential training and support.

You can read a Five Year Report on the Building Resilience in Vulnerable Communities programme here:

Final BRVC Report

Beginning of Life…

Beginning of Life (BoL) are House of Opportunity’s official partners in Moldova and led the delivery of BRVC over the course of the five year programme. The BoL team has a wealth of experience and a long track record of developing innovative and impactful projects over the last twenty years, and have transformed the lives of hundreds of young people. You can find out more about them here.

…and the start of something even bigger

We will be building on the lessons learned from BRVC to continue our work of transforming the prospects of margainalised groups and at-risk individuals. Part of the strength of our newtwork is the accummulated expertise and experience that we can draw on to design and deliver interventions that are effective in tackling the social challenges facing SE Europe.