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Premiere: civic activists – practitioners from 15 NGOs from all over the country acting as trainers within Youth Leadership Academy

Premiere: civic activists – practitioners from 15 NGOs from all over the country acting as trainers within Youth Leadership Academy

At the beginning of June, the Institute for Rural Initiatives launched the Youth Leadership Academy, organized for 600 young people from 30 rural communities of Moldova. During two months there will be organized a number of 240 sessions with different topics in the field of community mobilization and civic participation. A great novelty is that the sessions are facilitated by expert practitioners from the 15 partner NGOs of the Institute for Rural Initiatives (iRi) in the “Youth Empowerment Program (YEP)”.

The Youth Leadership Academy program aims to generate sustainable social changes at local level and to contribute to the creation of a more participatory society, more open to change and more equitable, where young people are appreciated and have the opportunity to act as responsible citizens in their communities.

In addition to the knowledge and information taught by the NGOs experts, the sessions provide the 600 young people with a number of acting tools, resulting in empowering young people to participate in the decision-making process at local level.

“The YEP program activities give us the green light to know how young people can be empowered at local level, and then create beautiful things in their communities”. – Bianca Recean, leader of the initiative group, Mindic village, district of Drochia.

“I was abroad, I saw other communities and I understood that only through our personal involvement and mobilizing the community, we can change things. These learning and participation sessions will develop our leadership abilities”. – Cristina Petreasin, member of the initiative group, Balanul Nou village, district of Riscani.

At a later stage, during the Research and Action sessions, the young people will be trained on how to identify problems, needs and resources in their communities, but also how to involve the community in the community development process.

“Participating in the Youth Leadership Academy sessions, I started to look at the problems in our community differently. Before, I thought that little is done in our community, today I understand that we, the young people get little involved “. – Artiom Tugui, member of the initiative group, Ramazani village, district of Riscani.

In the final sessions, the participants will carry out a real community research by developing a vision of a competitive community with real opportunities for young people. The young participants will survey at least 50 young people from each community and will collect opinions in order to develop a socio-economic, political, attractive and sustainable climate of a competitive community where youth will choose to remain.

At the end of the Academy, the young people from 30 rural communities will present 30 competitive community models (CCM) to the LPA representatives and local stakeholders.

After a series of discussions and negotiations, the competitive community models (CCM) will be debated at the Local Councils of the LPA to be approved for 2021.

In the iRi vision, developing the spirit of civic initiative and leadership among young people is essential for their involvement in the decision-making process, resulting in competitive communities with opportunities for youth. In this sense, iRi comes with a series of activities that complement each other and encourage the participation of young people by educating the spirit of civic participation and leadership.

“These activities are very welcome for young people. Only together we strengthen strong teams that will act and give good results. We have many ideas, but we need support and guidance. We very much hope that iRi will always support us with talented trainers and necessary information”. – Doina Pasat, member of the initiative group, Suri village, district of Drochia.

The activity is part of the “Youth Empowerment Program (YEP)”, implemented by the Institute for Rural Initiatives in Moldova (iRi) in partnership with Great Lakes Community Action Partnership (GLCAP), Ohio, USA with the financial support of the U.S. Department of State.

For more photos from the communities, visit the Facebook page of the Institute for Rural Initiatives (iRi):