Celebrities from the Republic of Moldova volunteer for the local development of their home communities

December 5, 2018

11 celebrities from the Republic of Moldova volunteer for the economic and social development of their home communities. They teamed up for the national campaign “prOMotorul de acasa” conducted by UNDP Moldova, with financial support of the Government of Switzerland.

Constantin Moscovici, master of pan-flute, Victor Bostan, CEO of Purcari Wineries, Ion Paladi, folk music singer, Victor Ambroci, Director of “Spiru Haret” high school from Chisinau, Olga Ciolacu, singer, Ion Manole, President of Promo-Lex NGO, Eduard Gurin, founder of the TV channel for children “Gurinel TV”, Garry Cozma, illusionist, Tatiana Turtureanu, pop singer, Mihail Ursu, historian, Victoria Dunford, Founder and CEO of MAD-Aid  NGO – got involved to encourage villagers of their home communities to volunteer and contribute to local development.

The celebrities were open to talk about their memories of their home communities.  They came up with ideas how to contribute to their development, i.e. events to collect contributions for the development of a local touristic, camps for pupils, monographs of localities, and volunteering work to arrange common spaces.

Victoria Dunford, migrant in Great Britain, returned temporarily to Mihaileni (Riscani district) to support the locality in attracting investments. She contributed to the production of a video to call for contributions for the rehabilitation of a local hospice.

“We plan to engage with local authorities for the rehabilitation of the local hospice, which is the only one in the country with healing water, but which has been abandoned for over 20 years. I hope to find partners, donors or investors for this project. The change starts from each of us and only by engaging and acting we can succeed to mobilize people”, noted Victoria Dunford.

11 celebrities recorded video messages and shared their memories of their home communities. The videos shall be released in December.

Constantin Moscovici conducted a master class for pupils from the School of Arts from Carpineni, his home village. “During this campaign, I was happy to talk with children from the School of Arts about the lessons learnt during time, as a professional and as a human being. The most important lesson as a human being is not to forget about your roots because they provide you with the foundation, inspiration, courage, wisdom and values that accompany you in the world, even if sometimes you feel like a lonely shepherd,” said Moscovici.

The volunteering activities are not an isolated initiative. There is a significant mobilization of people for the development of their home communities. About 10,000 people from 38 partner localities of the UNDP Migration and Local Development Project (MiDL) contributed with USD 257,000 for 55 local social-economic and infrastructure development projects.

The campaign “prOMotorul de acasa” acknowledges the engagement of people from partner localities of the project and will culminate with a motivational song and video clip, which lyrics were selected through a poem contest launched on social media.  

The final filming for the video clip will take place on Saturday (8.12.2018) in Chiscareni village (Sangerei), with the participation of Tatiana Turtureanu, singer and native from Chiscareni. The launching of the clip will take place on the 18th of December, on the International Migrants Day.