PRESS RELEASE

The Romanian Patriarch House, the Government of the USA through the United States Agency for International Development, the Ministry of Education and Research and the international Organisation for Christian Orthodox Charity signed today 19 April the partnership agreement on “Strengthening the community programmes in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention and fight against domestic violence in Romania”.

This partnership aims to prevent problems related to HIV/AIDS and the phenomenon of family violence, with the help of priests, members of the orthodox community and religion teachers. The programme is structured in three levels:

- Training priests and religion teachers on practical ways to intervene and mobilize the members of the parish community;
- Active involvement of priests and religion teachers in HIV/AIDS and family violence prevention  activities;
- Encouraging the involvement of the members of the orthodox community in prevention actions related to the two issues.

Present there when the agreement was signed, the education and research minister professor Mircea Miclea said: “The Education and Research Ministry offers its support to the objectives of the project and the responsibilities undertaken, in order to contribute to the de-blighting those people envisaged by this programme and building up responsible behaviour among youth related to the HIV/AIDS and family violence issues”.

Concrete measures within this programme are: changes in the religion curricula to include the objectives related to the two topics (domestic violence and HIV/AIDS), 4 hours a year being allotted to them. Also, the Ministry of Education with the support of the school inspectorates will monitor the implementation of the project, will recommend teachers how to deal with these topics in class and will encourage the transfer of good practices and volunteer work among young people for participating in information campaign in this field.

The funding of the implementation is provided by the Government of the United States through the USAID Mission in Romania and it amounts to 2,000,000 USD. The natural contribution of Romanian Patriarch House, of the Ministry of Education and Research and IOCC was evaluated at 3,390,000 USD. The programme will cover three years and will run in two stages, in 15 counties. The first stage includes the following counties: Iaşi, Neamţ, Bacău, Constanţa, Ialomiţa, Mehedinţi, Dolj, Timişoara, Bucharest. The programme will be extended to other 6 counties: Vaslui, Galaţi, Braşov, Alba, Cluj şi Bistriţa – Năsăud.

Director,
Mircea MUREŞAN