A Moldovan Community Brings Warmth to the Maria Biesu Arts School

What could bring a national celebrity and a US diplomat to the small Moldovan town of Stefan Voda in the dead of winter? They came to see and applaud the results of the community’s hard work to improve conditions for students at their local arts school.

World-renowned soprano of the Moldovan National Opera Maria Biesu joined US Ambassador Heather Hodges to inaugurate the new heating system for the Maria Biesu Arts School in Stefan Voda, Moldova. The speeches and ribbon-cutting celebrations came after five years of organizing and fundraising by the community. The heating system was ultimately completed through a grant from IREX’s Citizen Participation Project (CPP), which is sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The Stefan Voda project is one of 52 citizen participation grant initiatives in Moldova helping communities improve their infrastructure and facilities, provide social services, and generate income and jobs for disenfranchised citizens.

US Ambassador Hodges applauded the project’s success at bringing together a myriad of citizens of varying interests and ages, and noted that it was the first time she had seen so many citizens participate in such a creative way.

For five years, Maria Biesu Arts School’s management sought funds to create an autonomous heating system for their “factory of talent”, which provides training and education for aspiring artists and performers. With help from former Tighina regional authorities and the City Hall, the school received two new boilers and use of a converted city building to house a boiler system. But with only 40 percent of the work completed, addition of piping to connect the boiler system to the school was stalled due to lack of funding. “At that time we did not see a way to finish the project,” recalls Vitalie Rusanovschi, director of the school’s resident NGO Rural 21.

The Stefan Voda project was selected as part of IREX’s countrywide needs assessment and outreach campaign at the launch of CPP. Community leaders and citizens who supported the heating project signed up for a two-day community forum facilitated by CPP trainers, where they learned the benefits of and tools for engaging the wider citizenry in solving community needs.

With the IREX community grant and substantial community-wide involvement, the citizens of Stefan Voda collected enough funding to purchase and install a needed smokestack, safety gauges, and connection pipes to effectively bring heat to the school building. The powerful crusade not only gathered needed community co-funding, but also engaged citizens as part of positive change.

Soprano Maria Biesu remembered warmly an earlier visit to the arts school: “Last time I visited the school, I told you that I would never come again in the winter cold. Obviously, I was joking, but it seems my words brought good luck.”