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LIGA III. Academy for building community activism

LIGA III. Academy for building community activism

On February 27 – March 1, 2015 the Institute for Rural Initiatives organized the third training course focused on the development of community activism. During an extensive four day workshop 64 participants, representatives of 5 ethnic minorities (Ukrainian, Roma, Bulgarian, Gagauzian and Czech) coming from 15 communities from all over Moldova, have attended capacity building sessions on the following topics: “Core Elements of a Project”, “Community Fundraising”, “Developing of an Action Plan”, “Peer to Peer Education”, as well as “Best Practices and Lessons Learned” sharing sessions.

“I am very pleased to see representatives of different ethnic groups from Moldova at this event. A diverse group can become a more united group; a diverse group can provide different perspective in order to come up with more unifying solution. This way, your communities will grow stronger due to their diversity. Therefore, Moldova will become a stronger country because of its diversity”, has mentioned during his welcoming speech Paul G. Graddon, Political-Economic Section, US Embassy in Moldova, guest of honor at all three LIGA trainings.

LIGA III was the last capacity building course out of three series of events. The first one was successfully held in August and the second one in December 2014.

Using the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired and developed during the workshops, initiative groups will start shortly to implement small scale projects in their native communities. First step in motivating and encouraging participants has been done already by Nicoleta Chirita and Iustina Neagu, our trainers from Romania, who generously contributed with 100$ each from their own resources and helped to start the process of fundraising. Taraclia town and Gribova village, Drochia rayon, were the communities that became winners after a thoroughly and transparent voting.

Beauties of cultural diversity could be admired and valued within the intercultural night, a tradition that has become an indispensable part of all three LIGA events. This time, in addition to the songs, dances and traditional costumes, participants came up with a creative presentation, a drawing, a collage, a PowerPoint presentation or a 3D model of the community initiatives they plan to implement shortly within the frame of the project, other stakeholders are encouraged to contribute to these initiatives as well.

The training course was conducted by an international team of professional trainers: Kajo Zboril (Slovakia), Iustina Neagu and Nicoleta Chirita (Romania), and Sofia Ursul (Republic of Moldova).

Training course “Academy for building community activism III” represents a part of iRi efforts to promote and share best practices of cross cultural communication, civic activism, volunteerism, community mobilization and support of community engagement and participation.

The “Minority Empowerment in Moldova” project is funded by the U.S. State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, administered by WSOS Community Action Commission, Inc. and is locally implemented by the Institute for Rural Initiatives.


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