More than half – 55% – of parents working abroad will not spend the Easter holidays in their home country with their children, while 39% say they will come home for Easter, and 6% were still undecided about returning, according to a survey conducted by Save the Children Romania among beneficiaries of a program dedicated to children with parents who have left the country.
The most commonly cited reasons for parents not being able to come home were the lack of money allocated for travel to Romania and the inability to take leave or days off during this period.
According to a national study on the situation of children with parents working abroad conducted by Save the Children Romania in 2022, 13.8% of children in Romania, or 536,000, had one or both parents working abroad from June 2021 to June 2022. The region with the highest percentage of children in this situation was South-Muntenia, with 107,150 or 20.3% of children with at least one parent working abroad.
To address the situation, Save the Children Romania will expand its support program for children left alone at home due to their parents’ economic migration, a program that has provided support for over 25,600 children and adults, 4,600 of them with the support of PEPCO Romania. This includes activities for connecting parents and children, conducted both in local Save the Children centers and in over 60 partner schools. In this way, children whose parents work abroad in six counties – Suceava, Iasi, Vaslui, Mures, Hunedoara, and Dambovita – will be integrated into complex psycho-socio-educational support programs.
Moreover, the program continues the awareness campaign about the importance of quality parent-child time, launched in 2022 under the message “Together everything is better!”, through the development of materials and guides with specific activities and recommendations, organizing activities between parents or caregivers and children, information and counseling caravans in rural areas, and workshops for teachers to encourage the adoption of these activities in as many schools as possible.
The campaign aimed at raising parents’ awareness of the importance of communicating with their children and spending quality time with them will continue starting from the Easter holiday period. Parents and relatives of children in the program will be involved or directed towards specific connecting activities, either remotely, given that most parents do not return to the country, or directly, inspired by materials promoted in the campaign. Additionally, over 60 partner schools are encouraging the implementation of such activities.
“For children whose parents are forced to work in other countries, holidays are tough when parents cannot come home. The feeling of loneliness is intensified during such times, and therefore it is vital that the connection with parents is maintained, even from a distance. There are emotional and social consequences of this phenomenon so specific to our country,” says Gabriela Alexandrescu, Executive President of Save the Children Romania.
The magnitude of the phenomenon of children with parents working abroad necessitated the development of a network of specialized services for these children. Since 2010, Save the Children has created such services, addressing both the children and their parents and the caregivers left in charge.
In day centers dedicated to these children, interdisciplinary teams composed of psychologists, social workers, and educators provide psychological and social counseling services, school support activities, socialization activities for children, as well as parental education, social counseling, and legal guidance for adults.
The program has been conducted in Bucharest and 18 counties: Arges, Brasov, Caras-Severin, Constanta, Dambovita, Dolj, Galati, Hunedoara, Iasi, Mures, Neamt, Olt, Suceava, Timis, Tulcea, Vaslui, Valcea, and Vrancea. Just in 2023, local programs were run in 50 schools in these counties. Over 130,000 individuals, parents, children, and specialists, have been informed about the negative impact of parents’ departure on children left at home, as well as the obligations that parents have when leaving the country.
(Photo source: Save the Children)
