People can notify authorities of social problems over Internet

The people can inform the authorities about the problems identified by them through the website www.alerte.md, which aims to facilitate interaction between society and the public administration by showing the social problems on an online map, Info-Prim Neo reports. The project was presented in a Civil Society Press Club meeting themed “Utilization of new information technologies in solving community problems”. The website was created by MediaPoint – an organizations founded by a group of students and young professionals from different areas. “Such a project was necessary as we often experience problems and unpleasant incidents on the stairs of apartment building, on playgrounds and on the street. Sometimes there are so many problems that we start to ignore them. The people often write applications and petitions to the competent authorities, but this is a rather difficult process,” said MediaPoint head Andrei Fornea. According to him, the website alerte.md is intended for the residents of Chisinau municipality and other settlements, where there were identified more than 200 social problems. Andrei Fornea said they want to cooperate with the Chisinau City Hall in finding solutions to the reported problems. Andrei Fornea also said that the place where the problem was identified can be indicated on the map so that the members of the community and the authorities are aware of the existing problems. Vadim Branzaniuc, head of the Public Relations Service of the Chisinau City Hall, said the Chisinau administration is ready to cooperate with civil society in this respect. The information provided by the people will be analyzed by the City Hall and will be then sent to the subdivisions. “The City Hall’s website will contain a direct link to www.alerte.md. We will also have a channel for monitoring the steps taken to resolve the problems and will demand that the public opinion be informed about every case solved,” said Vadim Branzaniuc. The project alerte.md was launched on February 1, 2011 by MediaPoint, which develops initiatives with the aim of making society in Moldova more responsible and of informing the authorities about the problems faced by the people. The meeting of the Civil Society Press Club was organized with the support provided by USAID within the FHI 360 Strengthening Civil Society in Moldova Project.