Chisinau, June 22 (Infotag). The final conference of the innovative project “Youth Against Social Exclusion in Moldova” (YASEM), implemented by the Italian Consortium of Solidarity (ICS) and the National Youth Council of Moldova (CNTM), will take place this Friday in the Labor Institute (Chisinau). This will be the last step of the 18-month-long project, which started in January 2003 and was funded by the European Commission in the framework of the Institutional Building Partnership Program and with the support of UNICEF.

The project aimed to promote the development of the youth NGOs (member organizations of CNTM) in Moldova, providing them with innovative tools for the intervention in favor of vulnerable young people in the country. These tools included social theater, social video and HIV/AIDS prevention techniques.

Three groups of young NGO leaders from Cahul, Chisinau and Balti were trained in Italy and Moldova by highly professional Italian experts in psychosocial animation. Trainings were followed by production of a social video “Encounters”, which reflects social exclusion in Moldova from youth perspective, touching the subjects of street children, elderly people, homeless people, homosexuality and poverty among others.

The video was projected all over the country for an audience of over 1000 persons. Using social theater, the project participants have worked in orphanages, boarding schools (internat) and organized workshops on integration of people with different sexual orientation. Also training on HIV/AIDS prevention was held for young Moldovan activists, facilitated by Italian experts.

ICS is a network of around 100 Italian associations and NGOs involved in solidarity work, present and active in Moldova since 2000. CNTM (National Youth Council of Moldova) is an umbrella non-governmental organisation for 38 regional and national youth NGOs. Experts from Italy are coming from Milano Catholic University, LILA-CEDIUS (Italian League for the fight against AIDS) and Tonicorti (NGO specialized in the use of video as a tool for social intervention). The project involved 31 Moldovan youth NGOs members of the CNTM from the towns of Chisinau, Balti and Cahul.