MCDA enters new phase of childcare

The Macau Child Development Association (MCDA), a non-profit association founded in 2004 to support children with developmental, communication and learning disorders, inaugurated its long-awaited new headquarters over the weekend.
Named “Reach for the Star Home,” the new headquarters will host a range of therapy, educational and support services.
For MCDA coordinator Eliana Calderon, the new development represents “a big opportunity for the children and their families” and a major step in terms of “stability.”
Calderon told the Times that the new venue will provide stability to the association, which will no longer be subject to the “usual kick-out” that takes place “every two years or so” when rental fees increase.
The space is also a great achievement, as it represents a place to hold “a series of vocational activities that will prepare these children for their daily lives and contribute decisively to their independence,” Calderon said.
The coordinator said that MCDA now faces a new and significant challenge: the funding and hiring of professionals to work with the children, particularly in the therapy center.
“It is always a big issue. We need to hire professionals, most of them from abroad; Portugal and other countries – and the bureaucracies regarding the issuing of residency and working permits are huge and sometimes inexplicable,” Calderon said. “As for the therapists, we can normally hire them, but mostly we need translators, people that can [build] the bridge between the children and even the therapists and parents. For these people, we cannot get the quota that we need.”
“I think the services do not understand our needs because they work in a ‘value for money system’ and not in an ‘every child counts and is worthy’ system, as we do,” she continued.
Public awareness and parental education are two other areas of focus for the association, as stigmatization often takes place in a society where parents lack information on how best to deal with their children’s needs.
“Most of the time, parents focus too much on the disorder and not the opportunities to minimize it. It is normal; it is part of the phases that people pass when they face these situations,” the MCDA coordinator said.