News

Together we build an active civil society. Advocacy and Lobby training

Together we build an active civil society. Advocacy and Lobby training

On July 17–19, 2015 the Institute for Rural Initiatives organized a three day training for representatives of 15 initiative groups involved in the “Minority Empowerment in Moldova” project and 45 NGOs from all over Moldova.

During the workshop 78 participants have been involved in interactive training sessions on the following topics: Advocacy and Lobby strategies and campaigning; Advocacy and Lobby – legal framework and subsidiary legislation; Efficient tools and techniques of decision making process facilitation. Throughout the training participants have also continuously learned from study cases and best practices in Advocacy and Lobby in national and international experiences.

For three days participants along with trainers have facilitated multiple workshops aimed to develop their skills and make them use the resources they already have in order to solve common community issues.

“All together we represent the civil society and have an important role in consolidation of the democracy process and building an active civil society, able to advocate and promote its interests. The civil society represents the core interests and aspirations of a society, and it is in our hands to take action to help change our life for the better. Our role is to help identify and promote public interests by building strong and efficient partnerships between civil society and public and also private institutions, as well as to continue information and education of the citizens and influencing public policy”, has mentioned in her welcoming speech Tatiana Costev, Executive Director iRi.

The guest of honor Mr. Paul G. Graddon, Political-Economic Section, representative of the U.S. Embassy in Moldova, has hailed the event and underlined, during his speech, the importance of such initiatives at the national level.

“These three days of training in Advocacy and Lobby domain allowed me to actively participate in the learning process and simultaneously apply into practice the knowledge that will help me to successfully support a social cause or a community interests in the future. I have had an amassing opportunity to do networking, build partnerships, and develop professional and personal connections with representatives of local and national NGOs and initiative groups from all over the country. It was a very useful and necessary experience and I look forward to pass it on to my colleagues and partners. Thank you, iRi!”, stated Nicolae Moroianu, Youth Bank Cahul.

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

Advocacy and Lobby training was implemented within the “Minority Empowerment in Moldova” project 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.