Macau (MNA) – The Social Welfare Bureau (IAS) is reducing its support for the Macau Child Development Association (MCDA), with the association’s President and Director, Eliana Calderon claiming the Bureau informed them too late and without providing a reasonable explanation.
Speaking to Macau News Agency (MNA), Ms. Calderon (pictured right) said that at the end of February 2017, the IAS told the association that due to “changes in regulations” they could no longer continue with the original support framework provided to them.
Overall, this move would involve changes in the support provided both to the association and its subsidiary centre, the Macau Child Development Centre (MCDC) – previously Sun Yick.
The announcement came after the MCDA head and some of its staff held a meeting in 2016 with the person then responsible for the Rehabilitation Department of the Bureau, Vivian Tam Weng Si, in which – MCDA claims – they were led to believe they could go forward with their yearly proposal.
“We were already working on the proposal and the recruitment, we understood that we were just going to enhance our already existing assistance agreement with the Social Services, that the sponsorship was [for children] from two to fourteen [years old],” Ms. Calderon explained.
But the message that came from IAS was different, with the Bureau having told MCDA that they would only support their programme for children aged from zero to three.
“We actually thought that we were going to increase it, the age. We told them that we were going to keep the services in the [headquarters] and we were just going to enhance it over [the centre]. That’s why I didn’t see a problem to continue it there.”
She insisted that the IAS is “suggesting” them to amend the proposal, without agreement on her part.
“They informed us on February 2017, that the current agreement would be terminated and confirmed by writing in October […]. The problem is that they also told us very late,” she contended.
If Ms. Calderon does not accept their terms, IAS will cease funding the programme this month.
“I hope they will continue. But it will be a completely different format,” she said. “We need to follow what they say or we have to quit, they have told us.”
Staff and centre
Another problem pointed out by Ms. Calderon concerns their need for technical personnel, which includes language therapists, social workers, and special-education needs teachers, to name a few.
“We wanted a language therapist, but the Social Services said no,” she told MNA, claiming they denied the request based on the fact that IAS expects them to operate as an early intervention centre.
“The professionals hired for the centre are already there and we already started the recruitment since last year, but we have not been successful until now,” said the President.
On the one hand, she explained, the age range defined for the children “is too narrow” while they would have wanted “to have a wider range group.”
“The centre is so small that we hire one professional for each area and normally it is an inexperienced professional and I don’t have anybody to be a guide,” she explained. “Many of these professionals only have a bachelor degree.”
On the other hand, “the salary expectations are higher than what we can offer, plus the benefits.”
The IAS has also resisted the associations’ request to have a psychologist based on the age criteria.
“I’m very respectful of Mr. Alexis Tam. I don’t know if he is aware of this,” she stated.
IAS started sponsoring the MCDA’s activities in 2008, with the association having been founded in 2004.
