This initiative was carried on by the “Baștina Gospodarului” Local Action Group, which is one of the LAGs, created in the spring of 2019, after a long process of meetings, discussions, identifying local resources that would be valued in the context of the chosen priorities, among which the sports development, as well as of culture and leisure services in the microregion has a high place.

“I love sports since I was a child and, only after I got a job as a professor, I started noticing the gaps we had when working under the established school program”, Vasile Bajan tells, a physical education professor and the project responsible. “The inventory was insufficient and of a very low quality. Consequently, we were aiming for the results we couldn’t achieve”. By implementing this project, the gymnasium got several types of sports inventory – for football, basketball, volley, rugby, badminton, tennis and other, as well as some training items to go through school normative sessions. This inventory will help at building the pupils’ sports spirit and might even create future national and international champions.

Actually, Malaiesti village already has two big names in the sports area of Republic of Moldova – Vitalie Bunici, with wonderful results at the fighting championships, and Oxana Bunici, the captain of the Rugby National Team. The latter promised to join the gymnasium’s kids in a few rugby instruction sessions.

“I see the pupils’ desire to use this inventory during the physical education lessons”, Mr. Bajan mentions during the project’s celebration ceremony. “We didn’t have the chance to practice good-quality sports, including the time I started teaching physical education. We wanted great results, but had no inventory to support the pupils with. But now, thanks to the LAG, that offered us big opportunities, we decided to find a solution for this topic. With this sports set, we will assure a very good material basis. You, the children involved in sports activities, can obtain easier the desired results”, the teacher added.

Burlacu Natalia, the gymnasium’s director, mentioned that the village’s community won many projects thanks to the great number to the assiduous, purposeful an creative youth. “I want to thank every person involved in the project – this set will contribute to the formation and development of specific abilities, promotion of the sports culture, of a healthy lifestyle and of our institution’s image during various sports competitions.”

“We want to hear about Malaiesti champions and don’t forget to cheer your teachers with your successes”, Ina Negruta, the “Bastina Gospodarului” LAG manager mentioned, telling the younger generations a bit more on the Local Action Group’s function, while the Malaiesti mayor, Ilie Virtosu, greeted the village for the greatest number of initiatives that were accepted during the LAG call.

Xenia Marcov, program coordinator, mentioned that Solidarity Fund PL in Moldova, along with its partners from USAID Moldova and Polish aid, are involved in a bigger project, aimed at local development. “We’re happy to see so many enthusiasts involved in this process, with different backgrounds and ideas, discussing the future of their localities and succeeding at implementing together wonderful projects – no one else can do it better that the locals. This is our credo – the local development decisions should belong to the locals.”

The “Acquisition of sports inventory for the sports area”, implemented by the Malaiesti Gymnasium, Orhei district, was implemented within the USAID LEADER Activity project, co-finance by the United States Agency for International Development – USAID, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, programme for development cooperation – Polish aid and implemented by Solidarity Fund PL in Moldova.

“Sergiu, the owner of this workshop, has come with the idea of modernizing the main elements in local beekeeping. Thus, more beekeepers from different villages were invited to collaborate fruitfully”, says Vasile. The beekeepers come from Dolna, Stejareni, Micleuseni, contouring a great collective that puts a lot of effort in its work.

“There are good visible results. We used to work before with classical horizontal hives. But the partial financing from the project has supported a lot our mission to meet the requirements of European standards, and we’ve managed to build vertical hives with two splits”, tells us Vasile. Even if those are technical details, the effort put during these few weeks is seen in those 50 hives given to each beekeeper involved in the project.

The workshop is filled with a fresh woody scent and striking sounds of assembling instruments. “The beehives are already put into work – the locals have already seen the project in its process of implementation. And since there is winter, we have created a split in the hives and let the bees to accommodate themselves in this new place, as they will have to work a lot this next spring”, mentions Mr. Porubin.

According to the project, one of the main aims is to produce high quality honey in big batches. “Usually, we have acacia and linden honey, but with these modern beehives, we could produce pastoral, sunflower, lavender and rapeseed honey. Our region, unfortunately, does not have a huge area of such plants, but we will try to benefit from Kodry. Of course, we would like to promote our products on the international market”, says Vasile.

Mr. Agafita team advises the specialists and enthusiasts to prepare many more ambitious projects in order to develop such an useful economic branch, as beekeeping.

This article is from “Success Stories” series, regarding the LEADER rural edition, Small Projects Fund 2018, implement by Solidarity Fund PL in Moldova. Solidarity Fund PL in Moldova supports the creation and the activity of Local Action Groups in Republic of Moldova, based on the LEADER approach. The project “Modernization of 5 beehives in the LAG microregion ‘Plaiul Codrilor’” is implemented in the framework of LEADER rural edition of Small Project Funds 2018 (with the support of Polish aid) and supported by the “Plaiul Codrilor” LAG.

The club opened during the second half of 2016 and it hosts, since then, kayak-canoe lessons for children and adolescents from Varnita village. “In the framework of the LEADER approach, we’ve received partial financing to buy a special engine for the trainer’s boat. Some of the children are 9 – 10 years old and during the practice periods, it’s highly necessary for me, as the trainer, to be nearby and to supervise them”, tells us Mihai. He also mentioned that the club’s teenagers are quite experienced – they’re visiting the club since May 2018, they have balanced the movements on water and are really good on leading the boats. “If the weather is windy, the kids need special instructions and increased supervision. We have sports boats, that require special balancing.“

The trainer says that there are many people who want to practice kayak-canoe, but the clubs doesn’t have such extended capacities. “We’d like, of course, to have more modern boats, as well as more teachers – unfortunately, I am the only trainer and my efforts are not sufficient for supervising more children groups“, says Mr. Chitaica.

The young people trained by Mr. Chitaica have already taken part in many competitions in Balti, Varnita, Chisinau. “Yes, we do have water sports life vests, that can hold persons weighing up to 80 kg. But the kids have been trained with special swimming exercises on long distance and they have developed their abilities in this particular sports area”, says proudly the trainer. “It took me just a few months to train them to achieve such high performances.“

Even if it was quite windy outside, the children seemed to be very dedicated to the time spent practicing their favorite sports. The efforts of Mr. Chitaica helped them acquire very good skills, that will help them walk against any wind they will face.

This article is from “Success Stories” series, regarding the LEADER rural edition, Small Projects Fund 2018, implemented by Solidarity Fund PL in Moldova. Solidarity Fund PL in Moldova supports the creation and the activity of Local Action Groups in Republic of Moldova, based on the LEADER approach. The project Safe tourism and sports activities in the LAG microregion ”Serpentina Nistrului” is implemented in the framework of LEADER rural edition of Small Project Funds 2018 (with the support of Polish aid) and supported by the “Plaiul Codrilor” LAG.

After an hour spent in the car, drinking a cold tea bought before in a shop from Chișinău, we headed to the outskirts of Dolna village, Strășeni district. We planned on visiting Vasile and Valentina Necula, beneficiaries of the Small Projects Fund (SPF), implemented by the Solidarity Fund PL in Moldova. The project, titled “Creating the necessary conditions for fruit processing in the LAG microregion ‘Plaiul Codrilor’”, has gained a partial financial contribution from SPF to build a second oven for dehydrating fruits.

“We have decided to build such massive ovens about three years ago“, Vasile tells us, mentioning about his childhood rituals of drying plums in so-called loznitsa (AN – a Romanian regionalism for a rod trellis, used for drying fruits, certain dairy products etc). “I’m truly proud of my doings. It’s like a dream came true – the one of working with fruits. I’ve been imagining myself taking care of my own orchards, and now, at this point, they’re of 27 ha“, he tells us, when wandering among plum trees.

If you saw those massive ovens, you would be amazed by these detailed constructions. “We live in an era with powerful technology. We’re planning on opening partnership contracts. We also want to develop a cooking oven that should be connected to a methane furnace“. 2018 was a very productive year for the Necula family – they have dried about 45  tons of plums, picked from their own orchards. They plan to offer fruit-dehydration services to other interested people.

The orchard was planted back in 2005, but it has grown during the years. Now, it hosts the growing process of three types of plums. “The waiting was the hardest part – the trees were growing along with our investments. But the first harvest brought us so much happiness and content, that we understood that everything was worth the wait. And we were proud of our work“. Now, the Necula family is working on enhancing the dripping irrigation system, so each tree gets the necessary amount of water. Thus, the plums are of a high quality, which means that the sales will also grow. But only 3 ha of trees are fully irrigated. “I don’t regret a moment spent on the orchard! Even if my family and I are working constantly, I love what we’re doing“, says Vasile.

By the way, the dried plums are for sale. “Many people are interested in buying them. We are preparing the necessary quality certification. We’re planning on a double production for 2019, which means more work and more workers. That’s why we plan on creating new job opportunities, as well, so we attract more people in our Dolna village. Everyone will be have good salaries in their wallets and dried plums on their tables“, says Vasile.

The Necula family has a small partnership with a firm, that will deliver a few tons of plums in Ukraine, but Vasile also hopes for building partnerships with Poland and Italy. “It might seem our business is not that successful, but we have settled a good working system for dehydrating fruits“, mentioned Vasile.

Vasile Necula advises everyone to contribute to the local development and small businesses in rural areas by participating in projects, through which they will obtain partial financial support. “We have to look further. There are a lot of projects, where we will invest our own money, but we’ll also gain other financial support, so everyone wins. People living in villages see pluses everywhere, so with small steps, we develop our business and create new jobs. Agriculture is not the easiest domain to work in, but with common efforts come even greater results“, emphasizes Vasile.

This article is from “Success Stories” series, regarding the LEADER rural edition, Small Projects Fund 2018, implement by Solidarity Fund PL in Moldova.
Solidarity Fund PL in Moldova supports the creation and the activity of Local Action Groups in Republic of Moldova, based on the LEADER approach. 
The project “Creating the necessary conditions for fruit processing in the LAG microregion ”Plaiul Codrilor” is implemented in the framework of LEADER rural edition of Small Project Funds 2018 (with the support of Polish aid) and supported by the “Plaiul Codrilor” LAG.