"Micul Odoraș"--Meet Mariana Grigorenco, the force behind the first home-based daycare for small children in Moldova

She has experience working with children with special needs, including autism and various disabilities. She loves being around children, and when she learned about the possibility of receiving support from the ILO to set up a family-type daycare at home, she didn't hesitate and signed up. 

With support from the partners at the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Moldova (AFAM), Mariana went through all the training stages and obtained the necessary certificates to launch this  alternative service. She cleared out one of the four rooms in her house, renovated it, and furnished it with beds and cabinets for children, transforming it into "Micul Odoraș" or „Little Treasures” in Romanian–the first alternative family-type daycare at the caregiver's home in the town of Bălți and in the entire Republic of Moldova. 

This initiative was made possible thanks to the National Programme on Care Services for Children Under Three, implemented by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection. The lack of a sufficient number of affordable early education and care services for children is a major obstacle to women's employment in Moldova, where the participation rate in early education and care services for children aged 0 to 2 years was 10 percent in 2021/22, compared to the EU27 average of 32 percent.

Expanding alternative care services will allow mothers to return to work whenever they wish, and Mariana, along with 26 other participants in the ILO and AFAM project, has become the entrepreneur of her own business. Childcare services offer numerous benefits for  women, by increasing their income upon returning to work and for families, by reducing unpaid care work by parents; and for the country's economy, by creating new jobs. 

According to legislation, it is permitted to form groups of up to 5 children or 3 if one of them has disabilities. Still, Mariana says she will initially accept only three children in the space arranged for them. The children in her care are under two years old and. In the first week, they stayed for one or two hours to adjust more easily. This is also her guiding motto:”„Gentle accommodation, without stress and tears”. Parents have a harder time adjusting than the children," Mariana says with a smile. After the adjustment period, the children will stay here all day, from 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM, while their parents can go to work without worry. "I have a plan of activities for each day, but the main activity at this age is free play. I will guide the children in their play and involve them in creative activities appropriate for their age. I have set up a space for sand and water play, which will help in their development, while their mothers return to work and continue to progress in their fields," Mariana says enthusiastically.

Mariana's passion for working with children comes from her family. Her grandmother was a nursery educator, and her aunt and cousin are teachers. "Many children knew what they wanted to be when they grow up. I had no desires or plans, but in the neighbourhood, I organized all sorts of activities and loved involving all the children."

"Micul Odoraș" is not just a play space but, more importantly, a space for development 

Since she also has qualifications in speech therapy, Mariana's daycare focuses on children with speech development deficiencies. Her professional journey and the launch of the daycare were not accidental, she says. Her younger son, who is now 12 years old, suffers from asthma, and she often had to stay at home with him. To be with him as much as possible without giving up the profession she loves so much, Mariana started working from home, especially during the pandemic, teaching English, Romanian, or various other developmental activities to children with special needs. From there, it was just a step to "Micul Odoraș."

Obtaining the necessary certificates for launching this service and setting up the space took six months. During this time, Mariana, along with 26 other men and women, participated in training workshops organized by the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Moldova, with support from the ILO. Experts involved in the Programme developed a detailed guide explaining the legal provisions and steps for launching this type of alternative childcare service for children under three years old and mentored participants in obtaining the license and certificates. It was not difficult for her to form the group of children, but she acknowledges that many parents are skeptical about these alternative services and prefer nannies or private kindergartens. "Parents who enrolled their children in Micul Odoraș have lived abroad and seen how such services work there, and they trusted us," Mariana explains.

The family-type daycare is a new type of alternative care service, regulated by a new law of alternative childcare services. The "Micul Odoraș" daycare was launched in the framework of a partnership between the ILO and the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Moldova (AFAM), with financial support from Sweden. 

The International Labour Organization estimates that investment in childcare services could generate over 116,000 jobs in Moldova by 2030, including about 29,000 direct jobs in childcare, over 69,000 direct jobs in long-term care, and nearly 19,000 indirect jobs, such as cleaning and cooking, in non-care sectors.