They quit their jobs, kindergarten or school and became bakers and confectioners for a few hours. We're talking about the Expanding Choices programme team from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) who, along with some families with children from UNFPA and champion company Panilino, took part in a decorating workshop organised on the eve of International Family Day, marked annually on 15 May.

Equipped with baking utensils, bonnets and aprons, several mothers, fathers and children from UNFPA and Panilino teamed up and decorated various sweet dough letters and other cakes to their liking. After practicing their creativity in decorating, dividing the tasks between family members, the teams formed the word FAMILY DAY together. Fathers were actively involved in the activity, demonstrating that household tasks can be successfully shared between family members.

"Through this joint UNFPA-Panilino activity, we are trying to highlight once again the importance of family-friendly and gender-sensitive policies that are tailored to women's needs and create conditions for men's involvement in household and childcare responsibilities. In this way families are supported to have the desired number of children, which contributes to the country's demographic resilience", said UNFPA Moldova Resident Representative Nigina Abaszada, who also attended the event.

The activity was hosted by Panilino, which is one of the leading companies in promoting family-friendly policies. Recently, UNFPA granted the company a co-funding certificate worth $5,000 to set up a childcare and play space, and the company will double its contribution.

Sergiu Guzun, the director of Panilino, was one of the fathers actively involved in the workshop activities, together with his wife and 4 children.

"Being a manufacturing company, we have about 200 women involved in the production process, which is about 80% of our employees. The project with UNFPA has encouraged us to implement better, more family-friendly policies for our employees' families so that they can successfully combine work and family responsibilities. If we want to support our employees and give them the possibility to continue working, to have an additional income, we have to offer them optimal conditions to return to work, so we will be able to maintain our employees", said Panilino Director Sergiu Guzun.

Data from the Generations and Gender survey shows that families in Moldova want 3 children, but in reality have less than two. The same study shows that women are mostly in charge of household chores - about 80% of women usually do the cooking, cleaning or laundry. In comparison, only 4.5% of men usually take on such tasks.

This initiative is part of UNFPA's Demographic Resilience Programme, which aims to create an enabling environment for people of reproductive age to have the desired number of children, including with the help of the private sector, which has a role in creating conditions for working parents to combine family and work.

The project "Expanding Choices: Gender-Sensitive Family Policies for the Private Sector in the Western Balkans and the Republic of Moldova" is implemented by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), with the support of the Austrian Development Agency, in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Moldova.