24 February 2020 – All those 44 district youth centres and their subsidiaries from villages were endowed with modern furniture, IT equipment, table and society games and sports equipment, thus providing young people with opportunities for leisure that are useful and interesting for their development.

The centres were endowed with bean bags, which allowed young people to get involved in team building activities, information sessions and informal trainings.

Also, youth centres and their subsidiaries received licenced softs and hardware resources (tablets, photo cameras, portable audio boxes, voice recorders); table and society games; sets of sports materials and equipment for outside activities (volleyballs, footballs, mattresses, cones, ropes, badminton, frisbee discs, circles for gymnastics, etc.).

Youth centres are public spaces that belong to local public authorities and are aimed to become points of attraction for young people at local level where they can develop personally and acquire professional experience. Youth centres provide young people with opportunities for volunteering, vocational orientation, leisure activities, etc. and are developed with the support of Joint Fund of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the United Nations Population Fund.

‘The equipment provided to youth centres under the Joint Fund is aimed to upgrade the spaces that are intended for young people. The support received from the partners of the Fund facilitate the organisation of activities for young people both within the youth centres and outside them. Thus, we manage to promote the youth programs for a greater number of young people from the community’, said Ion Donea, manager of the Joint Fund, UNFPA Moldova.

‘The endowment of these centres with these materials is an important achievement’ because it helps us to attract more young people to the Centre and creates an interactive and attractive environment for them’, said Nina Trofimenco, Head of Cimislia YC.

Liudmila Hituc, volunteer at Cimislia YC confirms:  ‘Recently, we organised team building activities at the Youth Centre and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we have new furniture and equipment. We can now conduct different interactive games that we couldn’t organise before. Pictures are now more colourful and we can’t wait to apply the ideas of our volunteers.’

Annually, about 30,000 young people, most of them aged between 14-25, come to the youth centres from the Republic of Moldova. Thus, they have the opportunity to develop in a safe and inclusive environment and avoid behavioural risks. 

The equipment that worth a total of about MDL 1.5 million we purchased under the Joint Fund for Developing Youth Centers and Strengthened Participation and Civic Engagement of Young People in the Republic  of Moldova, set up by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the United Nations Population Fund.

For details: Irina Dragutanu, Communication Assistant at the Joint Fund for Developing Youth Centers and Strengthened Participation and Civic Engagement of Young People in the Republic  of Moldova, set up by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the United Nations Population Fund. Tel.069694246, dragutanu@unfpa.org