More than 50 migrants who returned to Moldova arranged to have a meeting in their native town Ialoveni, where, together with the team of the mayor’s office, danced a Romanian round dance of the people from Ialoveni everywhere. This was the first event organized by the 40 partner communities of the project Migration and Local Development (MiDL) on the occasion of the Diaspora Days.

Mayor of Ialoveni town Sergiu Armasu said many Moldovans are far from home, but are always near their native place by thought. In the case of Ialoveni town, they are also near by deeds. During one year, together with persons native of Ialoveni who are abroad, they did a number of good things and purchased also a tower vehicle that the city needed very much.

In the meeting of the Association of Native People of Ialoveni who are away, the participants decided to lay out a park, to organize a summer camp for children of migrants and children who live in Ialoveni town, to do charity acts, to support the best local students with scholarships, etc.

The Association’s head Tatiana Vrajmas said the Diaspora Days in Ialoveni became traditional already and this event is an occasion for attracting more native people to contribute to developing the town. “The involvement of native people is catching and their children care a lot about the town and eagerly return to it to spend their vacation here,” she stated.

“It is very nice that the people gather around concrete projects implemented transparently, which are really designed to change the life of the people in the community,” said Gennady Balaur, who settled in Canada. He, together with his brother Igor, launched projects in sports and donated equipment for freestyle wrestling.

In the course of August, the mayor’s offices that are partners of MiDL will carry out different activities to inform the migrants and engage them in developing services for children and elderly people, local infrastructure and businesses with migrants’ investments. These events are possible owing to the cooperation with the local authorities and the involvement of the 25 associations of native people that were founded in 2016 with the support of UNDP Moldova and with the financial assistance of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Another 15 associations of native people are to be created in new partner communities within the second stage of the MiDL project.