The Diaspora Relations Relations (BRD), jointly with the Ministry of Education and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Moldova mission, today re-launch the sub-programmes of grants, Educational Centres in Diaspora, within which ten grants will be provided. The sub-programme's purpose is to support Diaspora communities and families with children of second generation, to maintain and develop the linguistic, cultural and emotional links with Moldova, BRD has reported.

The grants, worth 3,500 dollars each, will be awarded to ten Diaspora associations (NGOs), interested in setting or developing educational centres for children of Moldovans in their residence countries, including for studying the Romanian language.

The grants will be provided to associations with at least one year of experience in conducting educational activities, at least 20 direct beneficiaries (pupils), which will provide space for organizing activities with children, committing to participate in consultations with national experts, that will develop curriculum of Romanian. The winning declared projects will receive additional educational materials, depending on their needs. Political projects and the ones with political character are not eligible.

There are four stages of evaluation and selection of proposals. The process of selecting the most motivated requests for funding will be participatory one. So, proposals that will pass the first two evaluation stages and of the Committee selection, will be submitted for consideration to associations which have filed them. Each association will evaluate project proposals, excepting their own project. This principle of evaluation was established following requests by delegates at Congress Diaspora, held on 19 – 21 August 2016, to be involved in assessing the submitted projects within the Diaspora Engagement Hub.

The grants apply dossiers may be submitted online on www.brd.gov.md, till 14 October 2016, Moldpres informs.