What would you want your community to look like?
Real potential and talent grow when there is trust and motivation.
In Romania, rural AREAS REPREsent:
87.1% of the entire surface
45%
of the population
(approximately 9,600,000 Romanians)
8,8%
2,2%
risk of extreme
extreme poverty
of people are at poverty in rural areas
at risk of
in URBAN areas
Three of the areas with the highest rates of population
at risk of poverty and social exclusion
are in the South of Romania: Ro ma n ia
:
South-West OltenIA, South-East, South Muntenia.
The majority of people in the countryside
have no jobs and grow their own food.
Access to services, information and new opportunities is reduced. In rural areas,
there are few job opportunities.
Young people decide to migrate towards urban areas.
People are the most important resource in the South of Romania.
PACT team 12 years in the South of Romania PACT Foundation is actively working to promote community development in the South West, South, and South East of Romania. We think that every community has the courage, trust, and capacity to have an active role in defining the future of its people. Since 2002, our team has been supporting people of initiative in local communities in the South to build a better life for their members through community facilitation, training, consultancy, and providing small grants to enable community action. We help people form community-based organizations to identify local resources, act together at the local level in their benefit and in the benefit of the other citizens in the community, especially the most vulnerable.
communities which PACT has worked with over these years, 60 community-based organizations are
In 2015, of the 138
active and are implementing projects with their communities.
With the support of community facilitators, people identify what their common needs are, the methods to solve them and
get involved.
how they can
Community Facilitation
Granting
Training
Considering the
During training, these
complexity of the projects,
community groups
the grants vary between
learn how to identify
the needs of the community,
500 and 7000 â‚Ź. The aim of these small grants is to help community groups implement for themselves what they learn during the facilitation, training, and consultancy processes. Matched by local resources, the small grants help the groups prove to themselves that together they can change their community and to regain the trust they need to do it.
Consultancy
how to write a project to solve a
This step is in addition to facilitation and trainings in order to offer personalized,
on-site
support to community based
organizations in their process of writing a project, implementing it, communicating their initiatives, fundraising and other areas where they need help.
local problem, how to implement their solution, to promote their initiatives and to raise new
resources for future projects.
PACT in numbers
138 communities
with which we have worked
60 organizations active, community-based
170.000 â‚Ź in small grants for communities
345.000 â‚Ź
in services: facilitation, training, and consultancy for small communities
500 people
700 active members
trained in participatory needs assessment, project planning, project management, communications and organizational development, fundraising, strategic planning
of community-based organizations
2000 volunteers
from the 138 communities involved in implementing community projects
14.000 direct beneficiaries of community projects
Maria Č˜andor, President of PACT Board of Directors
“
“
People in Southern Romania choose to build together a better life in their community. Improving their lives means better living conditions (education, health, financial resources), but also a better life together: the joy of sharing good things with other community members, as well as things to be improved; to grow together with others, to celebrate and work together, to honor and take care of others. Together, these people can build the communities they want, and PACT gives them the instruments to make all these things come true and pay it forward.
I support PACT Foundation because it’s the kind of organization that does not avoid hard work in pursuing its mission. Rural communities in Southern Romania on which PACT has focused its attention are environments where chronic poverty can undermine the success of any NGO project - this is the reason why these communities are avoided by most organizations in development projects. However, PACT’s team manages to produce constant change for the better and to reveal the potential of the people and of the communities. This is possible through hard and smart work, but mostly because the team is approaching these communities with the understanding that, above all, people deserve respect and trust. The dignity of the people in these communities, however poor they may be, remains the central value in everything that PACT does.
Radu Moțoc, Executive Director TechSoup Romania and PACT donor
“
“
Spanțov People Călărași County
inspiring stories
Spanțov When you think about all the people, resources, and achievements, you feel and know that it is possible. A new desire to do more comes to light, says Estera Anghel, one of the founding members of Together
for the Future Association from Spanțov, Călărași county.
2010
Together with Cristina Costea and Emilia Ion, they started an
initiative group
three describe the community where they live as united, open, with
2011 association
initiative group in 2010 and they set up the association in 2011. All
people that try to value their local resources and do a lot from the little they have. Thus, the goal of the association is to develop Spanțov
economically, socially and culturally. At
first,
the
meetings
were
community suggested
by us. Step by step, more people joined in, and now
30 volunteers
we have a team of 30 young volunteers who
constantly
get involved in the activities of
the association. Our biggest achievement is that we are
active and we have projects for children, young people, families, women and men.
We want all social groups in
our community to be active. It
was
not
beginning,
easy
but
in
at
the
time
people’s perception changed
and we have more visibility in the press because we used
our potential: the one within
and the local resources in
Spanțov. We learnt how to work together. At first, we built
a football field in the community. Then, we liked it and we continued by opening an alternative education club, running
fundraising campaigns for poor families in the community.
work together football field
Now, we have projects on education, empowerment of Roma
alternative education club
Moreover, launching our first social business, Spanțov
fundraising campaigns
nationwide. Thus, our tradition, of rudari, won’t die because it
Spanțov Craftsmen
women, and traditions.
Craftsmen, helped us value our woodcraft and promote it is not forgotten.
We are happy with all these activities that we have continued
to develop since 2011. Every person contributed with what she/he had at home or his/her own skills, and we built these
things together, step by step. The young people are inspired by what is happening, and volunteering has become a state of
mind, a value in itself: we are doing good in, with and for the community.
You need to overcome your fears, to believe more in yourself
and in your community, and the support from external parties comes more easily because your results and the people from your team speak for themselves.
2014
GﾄザJANI PEOPLE Giurgiu county
inspiring stories
GăUJANI Cornelia Enache lives in Găujani and strongly believes that the power to change things is in our own hands.
2010 initiative group
So, in 2010, together with Vasile Pop, Carmen Gărăgău, and Georgiana
Bârnac Cornelia decided to change some things in the community where they lived.
We started to think about what we want from our community and we realized that we had to identify our needs. Things develop only from the bottom-up, and people need to share and talk about the problems they are confronted with.
We had more meetings, we prioritized our needs, and we looked for resources and solutions.
football field sporting, cultural, and educational activities
Our first achievement was the construction of an outdoor football field where children could enjoy sporting, cultural, and educational activities in a safe environment. Because we had a concrete project
that we designed and wrote, and because we were very determined, we received support and sponsorship from local business people, and local authorities.
We did not stop there. We continued by organizing painting competitions,
activities for children and as well as parents. We need to invest a lot
in education. Our children need to return to the village after they have
new job opportunities
specialized in different areas and to help the ones in need here. Moreover, we need to try to create new job opportunities here so that young people
will be less tempted to find something to do far away from their home.
In time, our activities started to diversify. We grew from an initiative group to a community-based organization of 35 people: The Găujani Association for Customs, Education, Culture.
first communitybased organization 35 people
We also wanted to develop our community sustainably in terms of local identity. If we want to be a strong community, we need to value our local specificity, to promote the people that remember our old traditions and
to bring them back into the present. We gathered everything we could: people, memories, weaving techniques, materials, pictures, and we set
first social business
Together, we take forward our traditions by transforming Romanian
local identity
up a tailor shop: The House of Traditions, our first social business. blouses we are sewing into money and new job opportunities.
We now know what it means to transform local community meetings into an association, into concrete projects. We learnt how to ask for support and to build together the things that we all want for our community.
We established partnerships; we built strong relationships with local authorities, and we pass on all this experience to young people in the
village. I feel we have become a strong community because we are united: we have learnt to work and come together.
strong community – working together
Frâncești People Gorj county
inspiring stories
Frâncești initiative group
I don’t remember coming and solving something together to be difficult. We
trusted each other, we said that we want to rehabilitate the wooden church
in the village and this is what we did, says Maria Hulea, the founder of the
2002 2003 a series of trainings growing from 18 to 40 people
Sons of Frâncești Village Association, from Gorj county.
We founded the association in 2002. In 2003, PACT visited our community and we started working together. At first, our initiative group took part in a
series of trainings, we learnt how to identify our common needs, how to
write a grant application and how to apply what we have learnt. At first, we were 18 people, now we are 40. We would not have had so many ideas without moral support and training. There were people that inspired us, gave us ideas, and we felt we were not alone. This is what matters.
Many activities followed afterwards. We organized qualification courses for bricklayers, and the students renovated the school and the kindergarten. We
organized events to raise awareness, trips for the elderly, and a Romanian
clothes festival, now in its third year. All these activities bring people together.
Romanian traditional clothes festival Volunteering
We continue to get involved on a voluntary basis in different activities in the village because we want things to happen, to get together and to have the satisfaction that we
are solving our own problems. Because we have always been
active, people in the community
started to understand that they could also contribute to solving
the problems they became
aware of. We know very well the situation of the place we live in
2008
and we want to prove to the local authorities that we know our rights and we will mobilize ourselves to get them respected.
In 2008, we supported our neighbors from Arcani to establish a new community based association – The Association for Developing Community Initiatives in North Oltenia. Step by step, they became responsible and aware that together they can have a strong voice in their community.
At present, the IDCON association runs civic initiatives to promote the environment and to develop tourism, and we are happy to have shared our experience and to support each other in our current projects.
We think we are united as a community and we also work with other
groups in the region. Civil society is not a competitor, but a supporter for
local authorities because NGOs help society as a whole move forward.
Anca Susanu, one of the members of the association in Arcani, continues:
not giving up is all that matters in this community development process. If
mutual support through local community based organizations society moves forward
you are patient, solutions will come along, and new people that want to build
their community join your efforts. Without a team all these things are hard
to do, and that’s why we are happy that our community works as a team.
A strong community is based on honesty, volunteering, a good partnership
with local authorities, in order to solve the problems we face. And only together can we solve them.
only together can we solve them
Support them to build their community!
People are the most important resource in the South.
The south is neither a very touristic area, nor very popular for investors, but people
here are open and determined to improve their lives. They have initiative and they act voluntarily. They become aware of the strength they have when they
act together.
2012 / PACT for COMMUNITY Because we want to be able to respond to communities when they request support for when they are most in need, in 2012, we launched PACT for COMMUNITY program.
Every year, together with private donors, we support between 10 and 15 local initiatives: community projects, social entrepreneurship ideas, and setting up new community based organizations.
by 2017, PACT wants to work in 35 new communities and to support them transform their potential into new projects, their resources into new job opportunities and other initiatives for local development. To achieve this, we need an investment of
130.000 â‚Ź.
With your support, over the next 2 years, we can increase the
number of communities and people in Southern Romania that will
get involved in realising a better life in their communities. They will have access to opportunities that we experience every day. For 35 new communities, 130.000
â‚Ź will mean a chance to
build a new fountain,
a playground, establish a community center, launch a social business, developing greater financial resources in the community, increasing local welfare, re-establishing trust between people in their locality. renovate
130.000 € will mean
the chance to develop a better life.
15.000 € represent grants and additional services for at least 3
community projects;
10.000 € help us support 2
new communities;
5.000 € represents a
minimum investment for starting up a
community social business.
Community means doing things together and believing in our inner strength. Let’s build a
strong community in the South of Romania!
They need now your support and trust!
PACT Foundation office@fundatiapact.ro www.fundatiapact.ro https://www.facebook.com/FundatiaPACT