After spending one year in the United States through the Global UGRAD [9] program and witnessing the American commitment to environmental protection, Moldovan Tatiana Morari was inspired to make her home country greener. In the US, “everything was just recycling,” she says. If her host town of 8,000 had a recycling plant, she asked herself, “Why can’t we have one here in a city of a million people?”
Together with mentor and Muskie alumna Alona Dorosh and two other Global UGRAD alumnae, Dorina Linga and Rodica Mirza, Tatiana won a small grant to launch the environmental awareness project Moldova Verde [10] (“Green Moldova”). What began as a community recycling and greening campaign has spread throughout the country. The group worked with over 35 companies to collect more than nine tons of waste paper and planted trees and flowers to beautify polluted regions. By advocating for responsible citizenship and collective action to protect the environment, the project has connected communities, local businesses, and public institutions and mobilized the country’s youth for national change.
Tatiana explains, “We decided to inspire the teenagers,” because “they will be able to promote this further.” Moldova Verde used an online video to recruit young people for its training workshop and leveraged the power of social media to spread its message, with over 100 Facebook followers and almost 3,000 website visits. It trained over two dozen youth community leaders from targeted regions in leadership and communication skills; participants advocated for change in their communities by convincing local businesses to donate their waste paper and by motivating other teenagers to volunteer. One participant commented that the experience “made me realize that our community needs to be involved more actively…in order to make a change in the mentality of our people.”
The youth raised public awareness of both Moldova Verde’s activities and the environmental challenges facing the country. The project quickly expanded from three to four target regions, and its call for community action resulted in partnerships with environmental organizations and governmental support.
Moldova Verde continues to make a difference throughout the country. A local school is still collecting paper to earn money for planting trees in the schoolyard, and ten counties have invited the project to their communities. Dorina is certain of Moldova Verde’s lasting impact: “We are so glad that our project got so much support and recognition” both in Moldova and abroad, she says. It “gives us confidence that further action in this direction will be sustained.”
The Moldova Verde team plans to establish an NGO to expand its work, and Tatiana is hopeful for Moldova’s future: “We still can do something good for the planet. It’s a small thing, but if we continue and the idea goes to more people then it’s going to be a big thing for Moldova. With time, we…can make Moldova greener.”
The Global Undergraduate Exchange Program in Eurasia and Central Asia [9] and the Alumni Small Grant (ASG) program are funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs [11]of the U.S. Department of State and is implemented by IREX. Click here for other examples of alumni making a difference in their communities.