Local Employment Partnership in Moldova offers people not only jobs but also self-esteem

Because of this, at the age of 35, she has never been able to find a job and get an employment.

Employers usually told her: "Healthy persons cannot get a job, even less, the ones like you!" She felt utter disappointment when she kept hearing this.

Nevertheless, Viorica turned out to be a real fighter. She did not let herself be beaten by fate. To support her family she worked on her own.

"With the 1,800 lei (about $100), which represent my disability pension and social assistance, I could not cover the expenses of maintaining my family, nor the necessary medicines for me and my husband," explains Viorica.

Dragging her left foot and leaning on a crutch, she did what a woman could do in a Moldovan village: she grew rabbits, chicken, then quails, and in parallel, she cultivated fruits in the garden around the house to maintain her family.



A few years ago, her son became ill and she had to buy bee products for his rehabilitation for a long time. That is how she got the idea to become a beekeeper. She navigated through the internet to find out more about beekeeping. She also asked the beekeepers in the region for advice, but instead of help they cut her momentum:

"You lose time, beekeeping is not for women. You will not succeed and I don't want to lose time with you, I'm too busy for this.” “That's what they told me, and that discouraged me for a while, but I didn't want to give up the idea”, says Viorica with a deep sigh.



Luckily, last summer she found on social networks an announcement about a free training course in beekeeping, to be organized in Cahul, the city near her village. She did not hesitate for a moment to apply for the training course. To her genuine surprise, she was accepted. Locomotor disability was not a hindrance. This is how she became a beneficiary of the first Local Employment Partnership (LEP) in the Cahul district, a pilot project of the International Labor Organization (ILO). Launched in April 2019, Cahul LEP has gathered over 20 public and private partners, at national and local level, who, with the assistance of ILO, set out to improve the situation on the local labor market. The aim is to create and formalize jobs, and to identify business development opportunities for youth and persons with disabilities in the Cahul district.



Within one of the eight LEP Interventions, Viorica Anghel, along with other 75 people from the region, passed a theoretical and practical training course in beekeeping.

"It was so interesting and useful, that in those several weeks of the course I didn't miss a lesson. I had the feeling that I read a library full of books on beekeeping,” says Viorica.

But it didn't stop there, the miracle continued. Within the LEP she was helped to transpose her dream into a business plan and participate in a competition for a grant to start a small business in apiculture. Even today, she still does not believe that she is one of the 20 winners and that she will procure 10 bee families this spring with all the beehives they need. A 2,000 USD grant she won in the competition will enable her to accomplish this.

At present, she and her son are just waiting for spring to come when they will bring the hives home and can finally launch their business.

"For several years, since we remained only two, the boy is my right hand and we discuss all the plans for the future. Gabriel is learning something new every day. He has ideas on how they could develop the business and promote a healthy way of life among the inhabitants of the region”, says Viorica proudly.

Until then, taking advantage of the mild winter, Viorica keeps the garden in good order and prepares all the necessary things for the beehives to be installed. As soon as she gets the wheels of her business turning, she plans to join the beekeeping cooperative of the Cahul district, which was also created with the support of the ILO project.



As part of the commitments within the LEP, Viorica Anghel has set up an individual enterprise and, having her business completely legalized, she plans to hire one or two helpers in the apiary in the future. She has one more dream: to help a few other people with disabilities in the region to follow her path and set up a profitable business.

"If I succeeded, then they will also succeed. The most valuable thing that I acquired participating in the LEP, besides knowledge and financial aid, was the confidence that all those involved in this project offered to me and now I am determined to transmit this feeling to other people”, says Viorica Anghel with quite a lot of zeal. “At the moment, I feel like I have wings! I gained a lot of self-esteem and dignity, things I completely lacked in the past 35 years of my existence, which I can safely call years of perpetual crisis.”