Bucharest City Hall, UNICEF, Step by Step open day center for Romanian, Ukrainian children

The capital’s City Hall, the Step by Step Association, and UNICEF recently opened PrimoHUB, a new parenting, learning, and play center for Romanian and Ukrainian children.

The center is meant to serve as a complementary early education service, aimed at stimulating the development of children aged between 0-3 and 3-6 years. It also aims at increasing access to education for children from vulnerable communities, developing parental skills of community members, as well as strengthening and expanding the skills of educators.

The services provided are intended for both Romanian and Ukrainian refugee children and are adapted to their needs and the families they come from.

"Early childhood education and care services are essential for all children's long-term development, school performance, and social inclusion. For migrant children, such as those who took refuge from the war in Ukraine, access to early education services is vital because of the risk of accumulating losses related to basic skills,” said Anna Riatti, UNICEF representative in Romania.

"Together with UNICEF Romania, we inaugurated today a new daycare center for children from vulnerable backgrounds. It is a day center where children up to 6 years of age will receive education and care according to a methodology developed by international experts in early education,” said Bucharest vice-mayor Horia Tomescu in a Facebook post.

“We all understand the importance of the early years of life to our development and that is why I am a strong supporter of early education and care services. I am glad that Bucharest City Hall has partners with local and international experience, such as UNICEF and Step by Step, with whom we can offer these services to children from vulnerable backgrounds, including Ukrainian children,” he added.

Twenty children will be enrolled at the PrimoHUB initially. They will be cared for by educators trained according to the Primokiz method, first designed in Switzerland. Their parents will also receive parenting advice.

(Photo courtesy of UNICEF)