August DIGEST. Most important news articles of IPN "Chișinău” news flow
August 1: Chisinau City Hall will develop a municipal program for the provision of medical-social services. The program will target socially vulnerable people and will be based on the concept promoted by the World Health Organization on medical-social assistance, stated Boris Gîlca, head of the General Directorate of Medical Assistance. The initiative will be carried out through the territorial medical associations jointly with the territorial social assistance subdivisions of Chisinau.
August 2: The project “Chisinau Sightseeing” Tourist Trolleybus has celebrated one year of its launch. In the period, about 10,000 excursionists made trips by over 430 routes and approximately 4,000 tickets were bought for such torus. 300 tours were organized according to the weekend schedule, while 130 were thematic tours. The project “Chisinau Sightseeing” Tourist Trolleybus involves two units of transport. The second trolleybus was introduced additionally on October 1, 2021. Different thematic trips were organized as part of this project during a year, including on the occasion of such holidays as Children’s Day, Public Servant’s Day and Famous Couples of Chisinau.
August 3: Students from socially disadvantaged families of the municipality of Chisinau will receive by 700 lei for getting ready for the new school year. The beneficiaries can collect the money from post offices on the presentation of the identity card during August 2 – November 2. The Chisinau City Hall for the third year has implemented a program to financially support socially deprived families to prepare the children for school. In the period, 6,423 children are to receive financial assistance according to the lists compiled by the General Division of Education, Youth and Sport based on applications submitted to educational institutions.
August 4: Thirty-two professional parent assistants of the Chisinau Division for the Protection of Children’s Rights of will receive by 1,000 lei in financial support. Such a decision was approved by the responsible municipal commission. According to the mayor, these specialists look after children round-the-clock for seven days a week, but are remunerated for only five workdays or for 40 hours, in accordance with the legal framework. Also, three children who temporarily remained without parental care, who are in the care of professional parent assistants, will get by 5,000 lei in financial support for getting ready for the new school year. Five persons from families with low incomes from Chisinau, who suffer from serious diseases, will benefit from assistance totaling 95,000 lei for covering the costs of expensive surgical treatment. The City Hall will also offer by a lump sum of 500 lei to 76 active blood donors who are members of the Association of Donors of the Republic of Moldova.
August 6: A number of educational institutions of the municipality of Chisinau were thermally insulated and outfitted with photovoltaic systems. The municipality aims to this way optimize energy consumption in schools and kindergartens. The works were performed in the framework of a project launched in 2021, which is at the final stage. During a year and a half, there were executed works to thermally insulate the walls and roofs, to replace windows and doors and to rehabilitate heating systems. There were modernized the interior lighting systems and installed photovoltaic systems. The contractors will ensure monitoring and maintenance during a year. The Chisinau City Hall said studies showed that such projects considerably diminish the building maintenance costs.
August 10: The heavy shower on Tuesday caused havoc in Chisinau, with the districts of Râșcani and Ciocana being the worst hit. Almost 90 trees were downed by the high winds, with roofs and vehicles being damaged, streets being flooded and drainage channels being blocked due to the large quantities of rainwater. A sum of 2.5 million lei will be allocated first from the municipal reserve fund for removing the damage gauged initially. The municipal commission for exceptional situations will be convened to assess the needs of the municipality and to inform the central authorities about them.
August 16: The municipal sanitation company Autosalubritate will buy 3,000 European-type waste containers from a Czech firm whose bid won the tender held for this purpose. The new containers will replace the old ones, and some will be placed where they were missing. According to a City Hall, the Czech company that won the tender has over 20 years of experience in the field of waste collection, sorting and transportation products. Also, Autosalubrity signed a contract to buy six side-loading garbage trucks from a Serbian company to replace its old vehicles. Another eight trucks will be bought under a contract to be signed later this month.
August 17: Two weeks are left until the first bell ceremony, as the education system is practically ready to welcome children into school and kindergarten classes. This year, larger investments were made in infrastructure – buildings, classrooms, heating systems, furniture, ventilation systems, canteens. How the municipality prepared for the cold season, what will it do in the event of Russia cutting gas supplies were among the subjects discussed during an IPN debate.
August 17: The Chisinau Mayor’s Office is critical of the proposal made by the Government to shift to partially remote education in case of gas supply cuts during the winter. Deputy Mayor Angela Cutasevici said during an IPN debate dedicated to the start of the school year that the City Hall is investing in energy efficiency for educational buildings, as a return to online classes would be undesirable. According to a contingency plan proposed by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development, in the event of a reduction in natural gas supplies by 30% or 50%, in order to reduce gas consumption, educational institutions could operate online 10 days a month. The deputy mayor says that the idea is far from optimal, as the managers of the institutions will heat the spaces anyway.
August 17: The problem of staff employed in educational institutions, especially auxiliary staff, but also that of children’s meals are pressing and are constantly monitored by the municipality. “Starting with September of last year, the Chisinau City Hall made several approaches to state institutions in order to report the situation regarding children’s meals, and after the new year the situation worsened in secondary institutions as well”, stated Andrei Pavaloi, deputy head of the General Directorate of Education, Youth and Sport, during an IPN debate focused on the start of the new school year. By the end of the week, the contracts and the prices of the products for the menu will be evaluated and, probably, the City Hall will submit a request to the Government. “As of today, the estimated price for a child’s meal in the early education institution, whereas in March it was 40 lei, from what the colleagues in the sectors say, it could rise to somewhere around 60 lei”, said Andrei Pavaloi.
August 17: Raising funds from parents for repairs or other maintenance work in preschool or educational institutions goes to show that the sector is insufficiently funded. But no one wants a leaky ceiling in a classrom, for example, said Zinaida Popa, PAS councilor in the Chisinau City Council, during an IPN debate dedicated to the start of the new school year. The statement was in support of her fellow panelist, the city’s education deputy head Andrei Pavaloi, who said the municipal budget for education should be at least 600 million lei, instead of the current 169 million.
August 17: The platform for enrolling children in preschool institutions www.egradinita.md excludes any suspicions regarding the corruption of kindergarten principals. Natalia Alexei, the principal of kindergarten No. 158 in Chisinau, says that the platform facilitates the process of enrolling children in kindergartens by submitting an online application, without the physical presence of the parents. All parents have to do to enroll their children in kindergarten is to fill out an online form where they enter their personal data and select the kindergarten that is closest to their home, Natalia Alexei said during an IPN debate dedicated to the start of the new school year.
August 19: An outpatient center for people with disabilities and disorders on the autistic spectrum will operate in Chisinau, under a cooperation agreement between by the Chisinau City Hall and the SOS Autism NGO. The center will be located in the municipal space located on 8 Nicolae Titulescu Street. “With this project, we aim to build a continuous and efficient partnership between the Chisinau public administration and civil society organizations, with the purpose of creating and sustainably developing inclusive social services for adults with disabilities in the municipality of Chisinau”, stated Mayor Ion Ceban.
August 20: In Chisinau, like in many other Moldovan cities, the number of cars on the streets is constantly rising, making vehicle traffic increasingly difficult. As of August 1, there were 734,000 officially registered cars in Moldova, with the number increasing at a rate of 2,100 per month. The rate is lower than a year ago, but this is still a lot when we think about how many development projects are now in progress, competing for urban space with the cars. Fortunately, however, as of late Chisinau has started adopting European practices for urban mobility. There is also a Street Design Guide to help fix the matters.
August 22: It is important that the education system in Chisinau makes the necessary changes so that it can prepare the children for the world outside the classrooms. The municipal education system must understand and accept the skills of the 21st century in the formal, non-formal and informal framework, stated Deputy Mayor Angela Cutasevici in opening the “21st Century Skills” Chisinau Teachers Forum. “The pedagogy of the 21st century is the pedagogy of competences. These will be the key topics we will discuss during the three thematic days of the forum. Modern education aims at the conscious development of man’s biopsychic potential and the formation of a type of personality required by the current conditions and perspectives of society”, stated the deputy mayor.
August 25: Eight large-capacity trucks for transporting waste will be bought by Autosalubritate, Chisinau’s municipal sanitation company. The vehicles will be used to transport solid waste from the transfer station in the city to the municipal waste landfill in the village of Țânțăreni, a job that is currently being outsourced to private companies, the Chisinau City Hall said in a press release. The vehicles with semi-trailers are produced by a company from Georgia, designated as the winner of an international tender.
August 25: Failure to observe construction rules by Chisinau’s residents and the lack of approved urban planning documentation leads to chaotic housing stock construction, which affects the city’s architectural integrity, among many other issues. Chisinau Deputy Mayor Ilie Ceban said the situation of unauthorized construction is permanently monitored by the local authorities, with deterrent orders being issued and sanctions being imposed. The municipal interventions include demolition of unauthorized constructions, issuance of cease-and-desist orders, rejection, suspension or cancellation of construction permits and submission of formal complaints for further enforcement of construction rules.
August 29: Cages for small predators, such as wildcats, jungle cats and raccoon dogs, are being renewed at the Chisinau Zoo. The cages will become more spacious, with panoramic exposure and closer to the animals’ natural habitats. The old spaces were practically as old as the Zoo itself. They weren’t built to the modern standards, and the staff had trouble taking proper care of their occupants.The renovation is funded with municipal money, with the development strategy approved by the Chisinau Municipal Council.
