I looked very much forward to, for the eight time, to visit Chisinau and Voinicel. My agenda here is to be a medical consultant,to discuss complicated cases and,so far I can, give information to parents.

Mariana and Egil are discussing a case

My background is that I am a pediatrician, having worked in the area of child neurology and psychoneurology. As I can’t speak nor understand moldovian or russian language, I have to be interpreted all the time. This is functioning very well as the interpreters are doctors or having paramedical or medical professions. I meet many parents having children with rare and not so rare diagnosis. What struck me again and again for all the years I have been here, is that nearly all the children (with different diagnosis) are overmedicated, very often with the same medicaments. It is often very expensive drugs and mostly of no use.

This time I joined a part of the Voincel team to Comrat, 120 km. from Chisinau. This is a russian speaking area. Although I did not understand a word, I perceived a very good quality of their lectures, looking at the acting, using of voice and gestures and the engagement.The audience looked very concentrated. Some had good questions.

Due to volcano ashes my primary flight and seccond flight were cancelled.I hope for tomorrow, five days delayed, to return succesfully from another meaningful visit to Voincel.

The 12th week in Voinicel was full of events.

First of all: we had nice gests, to be more concrete- they were two ladies Lena Lobakk from Norway-member of WCDN and her sister from Germany- Lotta von Heyer the physical therapist. Our team has benefit the short course in Bobath therapy and PNF method and some master classes in physical therapy which were kindly offered by Lotta.

Lotta has brought some materials for hand orthoses, but because of strict local bureaucratic rules the materials are at airport custom still. Ivan has to get some important papers from different Ministries and we will get this valuable cargo, the next week may be.

Tatiana and Leo have gotten their glasses from Hans Bjorn.

Four more Voinicel clients have been examined for vision by Hans Bjorn team.


On Thursday all team (Lena and Lotta also) went to the rural center for children with special needs in Costesti. Children from this centre were consulted by our team members and their parents and specialists have got some recommendation in order to improve the rehabilitation goals.

And the latest news: our neurologist Marianna has finished and successfully completed the course in Pediatric Neurology and Metabolism in Salzburg and came back to Voinicel, but that’s another story.

Friday, 26 February, I was invited in the Municipality of Chisinau for a lecture on “Early Childhood Intervention for children with disabilities”.

The Municipal Department of Children′ s rights is supporting the initiative of creation a Centre of Early Intervention as a constituent element of Family Physician Center and, in this context, “Voinicel” team is invited to teach a new team in the field. We are very glad with this idea, because the number of children 0 to 3 years old, from Chisinau, children who need Early Intervention services, is much bigger that the capacity of “Voinicel” Center.

Additionally, this kind of Center can serve as a prototype of regional ECI centre for other regions of Moldova in creation the network of Early Intervention services in entire country in the future.

Today in the Centre «Voinicel» Angelina, a 5 years old girl, was consulted by neurologist, case manager and physical therapist. She has got a standtable, received from Norway some time ago.

We hope it will be very usefull for her and will improve Angelina’s life. Her parents appreciated that very much and were very happy. Many thanks from Angelina!

Today, 19th of February, Voinicel center was honored by Representatives from Open Society Institute Mental Health Initiatives, Budapest and Soros Foundation – Moldova.

Raluca Bunea, projects coordinator from OSI MHI confirmed the intention of supporting “Voinicel” activities of Early Childhood Intervention for next year and also mentioned an eventual possibility of developing new project in Early intervention Promotion trough implication of “Voinicel” team in collaboration with UNICEF Moldova and Social Investment Fund Moldova.

The worldwide survey of clinical experts is being performed to identify all relevant areas of functioning for children and youth with CP. Over 350 volunteer experts from all six WHO regions of the globe are being sought.

Two professionals from Voinicel Team (Me and Marina) also were selected as the experts for this research regarding the World Health Organization (WHO)’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) as it relates to children and youth with motor impairments, specifically cerebral palsy (CP). The survey started this week and we worked on the elaboration of “ICF core sets” for children and youth with CP on special WHO link.

During last two years Voinicel team is in strong collaboration with Municipal Department of Education, one of the main activities of this Department is the promotion of inclusive education in children with special needs.

Lots of trainings with staff in many regular kindergartens were performed through the joint efforts of Voinicel team and this Department.

The greatest result of this friendship is the fact , that 18 children with special need – in past clients of Voinicel Center – are included in general kindergartens.

Yesterday the staff of the kindergarten N40 from Chisinau have got e latest news from Voincel team.

In my opinion, actual period it’s a decisional step for the future of Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) in Moldova. Nowadays, “Voinicel” Center is a Centre of Reference in Early intervention, with hundreds of beneficiaries children with developmental disorders and their parents, with practical research done in this field (I mean our dissertation “Elaboration of the Model of Early intervention service for children with disabilities in Moldova” –www.cnaa.md/en/thesis/8655/), with good experience in the field, with a nice and very professional team. Additionally, during last 5-6 years, we have done a lot of efforts for convincing Moldavian Ministry of Health, Ministry of Trade, Family and Social Protection, UNICEF, Mental Health Initiative Open Society Institute, Soros Foundation and other institutions in the need of ECI; there is also an impact on other institutions, like Medical University and Medical Colleges from Moldova, where we facilitated the implementation of a new Curriculum, containing topics on “Child with disabilities” and “Early Childhood Intervention” – in general, we are participating very active in creation of the positive attitudes in our society for implementation of early intervention services network in all the country.

More and more people understand now the need of changes in the approach on disabled people, more and more institutions are accepting the idea of collective efforts need in building the Network of ECI, supported by the State.

Now, I have a strong feeling that we need just 1 or 2 year more, a period of big collective efforts, for achieving something very important on the level of entire country in this domain, for enjoying first extensive results in Early Intervention in many regions of Moldova.

In this context, Voinicel team are very thankfull to all Norwegian people and Norwegian institutions for all kind of support in achieving this goal.

Started with October 2008, when all the Voinicel team did benefit of cources in hand splinting led by Margareta Persson (http://www.artronova.se/eng/all.htm), our center is preparing hand splints for the Voinicel Center beneficiaries and for other children. Thankfull to this abilities (and we are the only ones in Moldova who are prepring splint) lots of children did avoid the surgical operations on their hands and also, different centers and state hospitals (institutions) are asking us to make splits for their beneficiaries.

Last week 2 children from the hospital, Center of Mother and Child, were referred to Voinicel center. On the picture you can see a 7 years old boy who needed urgent splints that we made for him.

The Baby House for abbandoned children from Chisinau have also 4 children (that were consulted by our specialists) who need splints. Despite of the fact that we are limitted in materials for splinting, for these 4 children we will prepare the necessary night splints.