News

Young, diverse and dynamic learning about the change

Young, diverse and dynamic learning about the change

27-29 April, 2018 the Institute for Rural Initiatives managed to mobilize 100 young people coming from 20 rural communities from all over Moldova to attend an innovative training course, designed to initiate a long learning process. Energetic and eager to bring the change in their communities’ young people got actively involved in training “ProCivic Academy: Promoting human rights through the community activism”.

During three days, young people got familiar with new things and ideas. What is a community? What is a participatory decision-making process? What are community resources? Who are the main community actors? These are just a few of the topics covered at the training.

The general purpose of the training was to increase civic engagement of young people in their community by giving them concrete tools of civic participation. Young people learned to capitalize on existing opportunities and to act on based on the human rights perspective in the process of strengthening an inclusive community that combats stereotypes, prejudices and other barriers that serve as obstacles to democratic dialogue and interaction.

Plenary sessions and group work were combined throughout the training in order to provide participants with the most appropriate framework for learning, dialogue and exchange of ideas. Radion Velcev, Victoria Matveev, Laurentia Filipschi – trainers with extensive experience in working with young people and community development led the working sessions during the “ProCivic Academy”.

“100 young people with different cultural, linguistic and ethnic backgrounds, coming from 20 communities from Moldova had a great chance to work and communicate in a favorable atmosphere during the event,” mentioned Elena Turcan, program coordinator, Institute for Rural Initiatives.

The Academy also laid the foundations for a broad network of communication and socialization for young people.

“I never had a chance to participate in such an event yet. I was waiting it to be boring and I could not imagine I could learn something so useful and practical. Now I know how interesting can be community participation. I am very excited to go back and practice my discoveries in my community, as well as participate in the ProCivic Academy II,” said Anghelina Chirilova, Otaci town, pupil in the 10th grade.

Within the frame of this project, the Institute for Rural Initiatives will organize 3 trainings aimed to provide young people with a set of practices tools and knowledge to develop their personal and community work skills. The next session of the ProCivic II Academy is scheduled for August 2018.

This event was organized within the Sustainable Community Partnerships to Support the Rights of Persons Belonging to Minorities in Republic of Moldova project, implemented by Terre Des Hommes Moldova (Tdh) in partnership with the Institute for Rural Initiatives (iRi) with the financial support of the European Union and support of Ministry of Education, Culture and Research from Moldova.

More photos from the event can be found on the Facebook page of the Institute for Rural Initiatives: