Grigoriopol principal receives Ion Ratiu Democracy Lecture

Eleonora Cercavschi, the principal of Stefan the Great High School in Grigoriopol, was named the 2008 Recipient of the Ion Ratiu Democracy Award. This annual award is offered by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Ion Ratiu Democracy Center and the Ratiu Charitable Foundation, Info-Prim Neo reports. In a press release published on Woodrow Wilson Center’s web-page, it is said that Mrs. Cercharschi is a dedicated human rights and democracy activist who has devoted her career to defending children’s right to be educated in their own language. During the last 15 years children in Romanian-language schools in Transnistria faced discrimination and persecution. Transnistrian authorities insist that public education for ethnic Moldovans in their mother tongue be done using the Soviet-originated Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet. The separatist regime, supported by Moscow, has restricted the usage of the Latin script (the norm) for the Romanian language to 6 schools, which did not want to comply with this rule. In 2002, under the pressure from Transnistrian authorities, the high school was shut down, and relocated to Dorotcaia, Dubasari district, an area controlled by the central authorities of the Republic of Moldova, some 20 km (approximately 12.5 miles) away. The award will be presented at the Woodrow Wilson Center on December 4, 2008, during the Ion Ratiu Democracy Lecture event. Recipients of the award are hosted in Washington by the Wilson Center for 7 days, to allow maximum interaction with and mutual benefit from academics, practitioners, Ratiu family members and Ratiu Foundation friends. The Ratiu Foundation was established in London in 1979. The main objective of the Foundation is to promote and support projects which further education and research in the culture and history of Romania and its people. Projects, undertaken in Romania, are encouraged on different subjects, such as patrimony, civil society, democracy, civilization and environment protection. Grants are of variable size. The Ratiu Center for Democracy is a non-governmental, non-profit organization based in Transylvania, Romania. The Center, through its various projects, is seeking to promote the values of democracy, open society, and multiculturalism. The 2007 Recipient of the Ion Ratiu Democracy Lecture Award was Anatoli Mikhailov, Belarus, Rector of the European Humanities University, currently in exile in Vilnius.