Innovative project for youths with initiatives

Youths with initiatives in the communities of Moldova will have an opportunity to help solve the problems faced by their communities through an innovative project, officially launched Thursday, March 4, by the Eurasia Foundation – Moldova Representative Office (EFM), in partnership with the Ministry of Youth and Sports. The key element and the novelty of the “Youth Fund” Project is that the grants offered for the youths' initiatives will be administrated by youths as well. The idea of the project, which is based on an imported methodology called the “Youth Bank”, is that a group of youths, selected on a competition basis and subsequently trained, will analyze the community problems of their peers and will decide on financing worthy ideas. Launching the “Youth Fund” Project at a news conference at the agency Info-Prim Neo, EFM director Sorin Mereacre explained that the Youth Bank methodology had been devised by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland as a solution to engage young people in solving a vast array of issues, including financial, social or religious problems faced by their communities. “This project aims to establish, promote, and ensure the the transparent administration of special funds dedicate to small projects, implemented by youths at a community level”, says Sorin Mereacre. “We are very pleased that this type of program, which we think is the first of the kind in Moldova, will offer the youths a platform enabling them to work hand-in-hand, make decisions concerning the community they are part of, identify the problems of that community, and then try to solve them through teamwork. And we will provide the financing”. To put the project in motion, three local organizations will be selected from three regions of Moldova, which will have to support the establishment of three Youth Funds at local level. At this phase, the support of the Ministry of Youth and Sports is crucial, since it has the network needed to bring the project to a local level, where the youths are more disadvantaged and where the Eurasia Foundation – Moldova doesn't have possibilities to intervene directly. “I hope we will make a good team with the Eurasia Foundation in this sense, in order that the project could be made available to as many youths from as many Moldovan communities as possible”, stated Youth and Sports Minister Ion Cebanu. The financing offered for the project is roughly $70,000, which will be divided into small grants of approximately $1,000 each to finance the initiatives of the youths. Since the amount of $70,000 is, at a first glance, insufficient to trigger a genuine wave of activism and engagement among the youths across the country, Sorin Mereacre has explained that this just the initial sum. Also, the project counts greatly on the contribution of the local businessmen. In this context, EFM program coordinator Vlad Melnic brought the example of Romania, where the beneficiaries of a similar project managed to forge solid partnerships with the business community, thus ensuring the sustainability of their activities. Moreover, the beneficiaries have learned to obtain partial financing for the initiated projects through their own activities, like holding fairs, selling postcards, etc. The initiatives eligible for financing under this project may be of any kind, including of social or environmental nature, provided that they address a community issue. Further details on the “Youth Fund” Project are available on the web pages of the Eurasia Foundation – Moldova and the Ministry of Youth and Sports at www.eurasia.md and www.mts.gov.md, respectively. This initiative is implemented with the financial support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida/Asdi) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).