IN-COUNTRY: MOLDOVA

Donated child car seats save lives

In Moldova, one of the key barriers to using an appropriate restraint or child car seat is often the cost. Good quality child car seats which meet (international) safety standards usually cost more than the average monthly wage, and therefore many families struggle to afford them.

With the support of EASST and the FIA Road Safety Grant Programme, the Automobile Club of Moldova (ACM) therefore launched an innovative project to recycle child car restraints and raise awareness as to their importance through the web-platform baby4baby.org.

The platform aims to make life easier, and safer, for low-income families across the whole country by offering free of charge car restraint systems donated from by others who no longer need them. Since the platform’s launch, over 500 car seats have been donated. As a result of their success, the ACM have been advising EASST partners in other countries on how to develop similar schemes and are currently negotiating with the World Bank to export their model to Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. They have produced a guide for other organisations on how to build a child restraint donation platform, which is available in the links below.

Through the ACM’s successful advocacy work, the EASST Road Safety Education Pack has also been a feature of Moldova’s national curriculum since 2018 - making sure all children receive relevant and age-appropriate road safety education.