The volunteering activities should be extended in rural areas, consider Deputy Minister of Youth and Sport Andrei Spanu. In a news conference, the deputy minster said the Ministry aims to launch a set of recommendations for the local public administration so as to facilitate the involvement of the youth in volunteering activities. He argued that the young people do not know much about the volunteering activities, IPN reports.
Andrei Spanu said they intend to create a common online platform where to bring together all the opportunities enabling the young people to become involved in different activities. One of the biggest challenges in the area of youth policies is the lack of political will. “The governmental co-management commission hasn’t convened since 2012. This is a clear signal that the political class didn’t want very much the people to become involved in decision-making. Furthermore, the youth specialists from districts do everything except for youth activities, which is not a healthy practice. If we want the young people to really become involved in decision-making, we need solid political will,” he stated.
“The participation of young people in volunteering activities and in the decision-making process will make the public policies better not only for the young people, but also for all the people of this country, while the process should be more transparent and fair.”
The Ministry of Youth and Sport set the goal of developing the normative framework and collecting data in the area of youth so that the organizations and bodies interested in promoting volunteering in Moldova have possibilities and capacities to work.
Secretary of the Coalition for the Promotion of Volunteering Law and Activities Nicolae Procopie said the Volunteering Law in Moldova appeared in 2010. It regulates volunteering within noncommercial organizations. “The problem we face is that we are in a gray area where we have all the functioning mechanisms, but the institutions prefer to illegally employ volunteers, without obtaining the status of host organization,” he stated.
According to statistical data, over 40% of the people in Moldova are engaged in volunteering activities.
