Lucrul e tare tare greu

I am traveling back to my first village, Milestii Mici, for two weeks more of Peace Corps training. One of those days we will have a gallery/presentation walk-though in which every volunteer has a station to present their respective village and organization and what we've learned over the first two months living at our permanent sites. I will only be presenting information on my primary projects which are focused on small business and agriculture. I don't have many ideas yet for secondary projects that I can do with the kids, mayor, or school, but hopefully they will come in time. Here's the information that I will present about my community:

What are the problems of Zguriţa, and what are the interests of my organizations?

When asked about the weaknesses of Zguriţa, the consensus of most of the people is that our biggest problems relate to our young people leaving to find work. Like other villages in Moldova, it is normal for the kids to grow up with grandparents, relatives, or friends while their parents work abroad. There are very few people in the village of Zguriţa between the ages of 18-35. The lack of work in the village naturally leads to other problems like human trafficking, poverty, and children becoming orphaned.

By cooperating with my two organizations, ACSA and ONG Fortuna, it is our hope to directly combat the problems of human trafficking, poverty, and orphaned children by creating new economic opportunities through small business development in our village. For every new job created, another opportunity may become available for a family to stay together in Zguriţa.

I was invited to these two organizations in Zguriţa to collaborate with three people: XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXX, and XXXXXXXXX. All three of my partners have worked with the Peace Corps in the past and I feel that they are very capable to continue working on new projects, especially in the area of agriculture and small business development. They seem to be some of the most respected people in the village, so they will also be great resources for any other secondary projects I decide to work on with the school director, kids, or Primaria.

What are our ideas for projects?

Seed Packets
My partner has a seed business where she grows onions and carrots, harvests the seeds, and then exports sacks full of seeds to Russia. She employs about 20 workers to help her though the entire process. She wants to write a grant for a seed packaging machine. With a seed packaging machine, it is predicted that the bottom line profit for the business would nearly double. The “middle man” would be cut out and she could now sell small packets of seeds to retailers instead of selling large wholesale bags. If we could win a grant of this sort, it would be possible to immediately create at least 5 new jobs to operate the machine and to increase the monthly salaries of the current 20 employees.

Dried Fruit
A good bit of apples are grown in my village, but all of the farmers are individually selling their apples to a juice factory. They are getting very little money for each kilogram of apples sold to the factory. One idea to improve this situation would be for the farmers to sell their apples to a central buyer in the village who would then make dried fruit. Dried fruit, I’ve been told by farmers, brings exponentially more profit per kilogram than selling the apples to the juice factory. My partners have proposed an idea to write a grant for a machine that would cut the apples, dry the apples, and then package them for sale. Thus, a new business would be created where a farmer or association of farmers would buy most of the apples of my village, process and package the dried fruit, and export the packages to retailers. The idea would be to create a new business or association in the village, increase the profits of the current apple growers, and to attract new farmers to grow apples in their fields.

Drip Irrigation
One of the biggest resources we have in our village is our lake. It’s very large but underutilized. Our harvest this year wasn’t as great as last year because of the lack of rain, but pumping water from the lake to irrigate the fields would be a great way to help increase the output of crops. To realize this project, we would need to research drip irrigation and write a grant for the pump and pipes needed to transport the water to the fields surrounding the lake. In theory, this project could work in collaboration with the seed and dried fruit projects above, because a higher output of seeds and apples could potentially lead to more profits and more jobs.

Other
We have a vocational school for grades 10-12. The boys study the mechanics and operation of tractors and the girls study how to sew and tailor clothes. In the past, this vocational school has served as a haven for smugglers to attract young girls to leave abroad once they graduated. The last volunteer in my village collaborated with Moldova TIP and Winrock to do trafficking awareness and business skills seminars for the students and he successfully helped several girls find jobs locally who were about to go abroad. Being that new students come on a rotating basis every year to the school, it is one of our top priorities to continue this work with Moldova TIP, Winrock, and La Strada.