Elderly people from 10 Moldovan settlements benefit from assistance from foreign organizations. The results of the first implementation year of the project “Exercising of Elderly People’s Rights in Moldova” were made public at a news conference, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to project coordinator Tatiana Sorocan, a lot was done in the first implementation year so that the elderly people feel the care of the international organizations and volunteers and have a decent, safe and healthy life. Twenty elderly monitors representing and defending the interests of the elderly from ten settlements have been trained to apply local monitoring and participative management methods. The quoted source also said that 215 volunteers, also elderly persons, this year have provided social assistance and support to 232 beneficiaries selected according to such criteria as age and major vulnerability, by paying visits to their houses. Mayors’ offices and family doctors from the settlements and the Social Assistance Department helped identify these persons. There were also identified the necessities of 2,133 families. The results were included in a study of the quality of life of the elderly people in rural and urban areas. The conference organizers stressed that such a project is very important at a time when the elderly people in Moldova have low pensions and face numerous problems. They said that the project aims to improve and increase the old people’s access to social services and guarantees, to strengthen the capacities of the organizations formed of elderly people and to monitor the services provided by the state to this category of people. The project “Exercising of Elderly People’s Rights in Moldova” is implemented by HAI/Irish Aid Project in partnership with the NGO “Second Breath”.