Empowering women and promoting entrepreneurship among youth, supported by ODIMM and ILO

The state, through this initiative, convened within Causeni and Cantemir Local Employment Partnerships (LEPs), will offer to the 13 businesses non-reimbursable financial support amounting to 1.73 million lei.  Meanwhile, the young entrepreneurs’ own contribution related to these investment projects will be supported by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and will constitute 380 thousand lei.

The implementation of investment projects, selected through the Programs “Start for Youth” and “Women in Business”, will contribute to the creation of about 35 jobs in rural areas. The activities are initiated in various domains, such as: production of pasta, beekeeping, manufacture of cloths, production of reed thermal insulation boards, production of wooden toys, cultivation of fruit trees and interior and exterior design of buildings and landscape.

“ODIMM advocates for expanding partnerships and attracting external funds, aimed to support local companies and co-finance national entrepreneurship support programs. The ODIMM-ILO partnership is a successful one and we will continue to act for its large-scale expansion to provide more business opportunities for young people, including women with limited financial resources,” stated Dumitru Pîntea, ODIMM interim director.

“Local Employment Partnerships (LEPs) represent a social dialogue platform uniting various local and national partners striving to jointly identify labor market challenges, determine solutions tailored to local circumstances and undertake concrete actions to create decent jobs and formalize the existing ones. LEPs implemented by the ILO in Cahul, Cantemir and Causeni districts have totally proved their efficiency and have a positive impact on the local labor market and indirectly on the inhabitants of these three districts.  We hope that this innovative model will continue to be developed and extended throughout the whole country", mentioned Violeta Vrabie, ILO project coordinator.

Within the ILO-ODIMM partnership, implemented during 2021-2022, 110 young people and women from Causeni and Cantemir districts will participate in entrepreneurship training courses via the Programs "Start for Youth" and "Women in Business" and 50 persons will benefit from non-refunded support for launching and development of their own businesses.

 We remind that in the period 2019-2020, ODIMM participated in the first Local Employment Partnership implemented by the ILO in Cahul district aiming to boost the local labor market.  As a result of Cahul LEP implementation, over 208 jobs were created and formalized and 75 businesses in beekeeping, creative and craft industries were launched, of which ODIMM financially supported 11 businesses initiated by young people and women in Cahul district, and 25 young people have been trained in entrepreneurship.

Ion Bodolică from Colibași, Cahul is one of the entrepreneurs who received financial support.  He returned home, after seven years of working abroad, and continued to develop the business he started earlier with his fiancé.  The couple from Colibași have a business in agriculture - growing flowers in the greenhouse. Due to the non-refunded support, they built two modern greenhouses, furnished it with all necessary equipment for growing plants in any season. This fact allowed them to raise the labor productivity.

"Seeing the results of these four years, I decided to remain at home.  It is a great happiness to work at home. You are together with your wife.  There is no distance that makes people suffer. I don't regret something. I'm very happy and I thank Cahul Employment Partnership and the "Start for Youth" Program for what we have accomplished, so far. "

The entrepreneur Andrei Putregai from the village of Cociulia, Cantemir has a business in the field of producing thermal insulation boards of reed and provision of services for walls and roofs thermal insulation with reed.

The young man followed his father's footsteps and continued his business.  Namely, the experience and observations made in Europe, where the young man's father worked for several years, motivated the young person to start a business based on manufacturing of reed mats.

"With the help of this grant we plan to buy an automatic reed knitting machine or other thermal insulation articles. This would help us to produce more square meters of thermal insulation boards. Reed is a perfect thermal insulator. In summer, in the house, is cool, and in winter it keeps the heat. In addition the air circulates differently, not like with the phenoplast.  ODIMM helped us to promote the local, ecological raw material", the beneficiary underlined.