Concerts, contests, festivities, awareness-raising events and other activities aimed at celebrating the family will be staged in Moldova within the Family Festival during May 10-15, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a communiqué from the United Nations. The event promotes the respect for different types of families, including one-parent, interethnic families, families involving disabled persons and alternative families that became homes for orphans, family type children’s homes, professional parent assistants and others. UN Resident Coordinator in Moldova Kaarina Immonen welcomed the efforts made by the Government, civil society and other organizations to promote the respect for the diversity of families, organizing a Family Festival the third year. “When we look around, we see how this extraordinary and diverse phenomenon is rendered by a simple word – family. The love and hope to succeed in the difficult conditions of this unsafe world and to create a better future for the generations to come join all the families,” said Kaarina Immonen. The event will culminate with the visit by the Romanian star Andreea Marin to Moldova. On May 14, Andreea Marin will visit the penitentiary in Rusca, where she will provide consultancy to female detainees. The next day, she will take part in the Family Festival activities in Chisinau and in Causeni district center and in a ceremony to commemorate the persons who died from AIDS. “Andreea Marin is a famous person. It is thus very important Missis Marin decided to invest time, effort and creativity in promoting noble causes,” said Romania’s Ambassador to Moldova Marius Lazurca. “I’m personally delighted by the Embassy’s association with this initiative, which we wish to end successfully.” The Family Festival is dedicated to the World Family Day (May 15) that was instituted by the UN General Assembly in September 1993. In 2010, the Family Day was included in the list of official holidays of Moldova.