Everyone reading this news update shares a common interest in Moldova and the other countries of Southeast Europe. The deprivation, lack of economic opportunity, generational poverty, outward migration, violence, exploitation and human trafficking endemic in that region distress us. Through the Building Resilience in Vulnerable Communities project, we decided to do something about it.
Our answer revolves around increasing individual and community resilience and increasing access to alternative life options. The main goal is to offer individuals, families and communities an alternative model of resilient thinking and acting in response to the effects of poverty, exploitation and trafficking which will result in the avoidance of harm and significantly better life experiences, both immediate and in terms of future prospects.
We believe the foundations for resilience are laid in various aspects and spheres of the life of a person, the family and the local community from which they come and to which they often belong. The projects that make up FSCI and Beginning of Life’s Building Resilience in Vulnerable Communities initiative address every sphere.
When we first published our proposal we said our aim was to provoke substantive societal change at a scale sufficient to act as a counter-weight to the forces that drive the poverty and exploitation and to put into reverse the trends we highlighted. For that we need time – a project lifespan that runs over several years – partnerships, both in the public and in the voluntary and private sector that are built on quality relationships, interventions that are scientifically valid, plenty of data, and a commitment from the outset to evaluation and to active learning. It is of course early days, but the progress made so far is not just encouraging, it is on point, already addressing these criteria that in the end will determine whether the project succeeds or not.