Disability is an obstacle, a huge one, but the human spirit is resilient, and one has to keep going forward”. Read the story of Elena Epuri, a worker with a disability at Steinel Electronics in Chisinau, Moldova. She found a great job she loves because of the new Employment Law and a wage subsidy scheme created an opportunity for her. The ILO provided the technical assistance for these reforms and measures. Elena was born in Chisinau, the capital of the Republic of Moldova. As a child, she was diagnosed with infantile cerebral palsy. Despite long years of medical treatment, her mobility could never be restored in full.

Yet Elena was not inclined to sit at home and waste away. She dreamed of becoming educated and finding a job. She went to two professional schools where she specialized in computer and postal operations. Despite these qualifications, Elena had trouble finding work for many years after graduation. “Some employers were sceptical about my physical abilities and lack of working experience,” recalls Elena, “but more often it was a lack of adaptations in the workplace or long commuting distances that prevented me from finding work.” After years of searching in vain, despair and disappointment took their toll on her, but she never gave up. When her son Maxim was born, Elena felt blessed and loved. Time passed, and when Maxim was nearly two years old, she felt that it was time to start looking for work again. Elena’s mother had passed away long before Maxim was born. Without her mother’s support, there was only her father to count on, and she did not want to be a burden on him. She needed a job badly, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not find one.

One day Elena was advised to reach out to the National Employment Agency (NEA).

“The day I knocked at their door was the luckiest day in my life,” Elena professed. “I was interviewed, I filled out a couple of forms and I left. A few days later, I heard back from the office. I was given the name of a company and told where to go for an interview. Believe it or not, I was hired the same week I first visited Steinel Electronic. Returning home with my first labour contract in hand, I felt like I was in seventh heaven. I had feelings of excitement and hope that were new to me. I never miss a day of work. Each time that I pick up Maxim from kindergarten, I tell him that his mom is back from work to take him home.”

The Republic of Moldova has the lowest employment rates in the region, hovering around 40 per cent over the last two decades. The employment rate of people with disabilities (PwDs) is much lower, at just 17 per cent in recent years, slightly higher for women. Every third person with disability works in agriculture and is highly exposed to precarious working conditions and low chances for career development. Although economic growth is mostly concentrated in Moldova’s urban areas, the unemployment rate of PwDs in cities is double than the rural one. It reached nearly 6 per cent in recent years. While apparently low, the figure can be misleading as it tells little about the many discouraged workers among PwDs, who do not even try to find a job any more.

To strengthen Moldova’s labour market and improve workers’ livelihoods, both legislative reforms and practical measures are essential, and Moldova therefore enacted a new Employment Promotion Law in 2019. The ILO was provided technical assistance for the reforms. The new law promotes a portfolio of active labour market measures (ALMMs) designed to address the diverse challenges unemployed people like Elena face -- i.e. lack of skills and/or work experience, low productivity, employer discrimination, etc. The measures are directed to active jobseekers, as well as to the discouraged unemployed and to employers. They include training and retraining, traineeships, wage subsidies, self-employment opportunities, and local employment initiatives. Starting in 2019, the Public Employment Service piloted five ALMMs with ILO financial support, including a wage subsidy scheme for which Steinel Electronic applied.

Steinel Electronic opened its doors in Moldova in 2007 with a production factory of the German company, specialised in sensor systems, sensor-switched lighting and heat tools. The factory is located in Chisinau and employs 320 workers. Of these, 27 have various degrees of disability. 14 out of 27 PwDs were employed with the support of NEA through the wage subsidy pilot funded by the ILO, Elena is among them. Ten employees joined the company in 2020, at a time when many other workers in Moldova lost their jobs due to the COVID -19 pandemic. The wage subsidy scheme compensates the employer for the extra costs of hiring PwDs, and the Government subsidizes their wages in the first six months of work. This subsidy is equal to 30 per cent of the average wage in the economy. In return, the employer makes a commitment to maintain the worker in employment for at least 12 months.

Elena has been employed for nearly 26 months now, and she is happy. From her first day at Steinel Electronic, she has received training courses on effective assembling processes, occupational safety and health, and environmental protection. During her first month on the job, she also received individual coaching. The company provides daily transportation services to Elena and her colleagues. Her co-workers are always available to offer advice or a helping hand when needed. When her father passed away, they reached out to support her.

“We first hired workers with disabilities many years ago to reinforce our social responsibly culture, as well as to comply with the requirements of Moldovan law,” recalls Clementina Saratean, head of Steinel human resources department. “At least 5 per cent of our jobs have to be reserved for PwDs, this is how the Moldovan law reads. Yet, after some time passed, we realized workers with disabilities can be equally skilful, responsive, and, what’s very important, they are extremely loyal. The turnover among workers with disabilities is the lowest in our company. Eight per cent of our workers have various types of disabilities. We even hired a sign interpreter on a permanent basis to help the deaf colleagues. We are not going to stop here, more people like Elena will be offered the opportunity to join us.”

In 2020, Steinel Electronic was awarded the “Best Employer of People with Disability”. The selection was made by NEA.

“Employment is about more than just a pay check,” according to Elena. “It is about achieving and maintaining independence, self-confidence and paying back your family. Things have changed in the last two years. I’ve got a job, and Maxim again has a mother full of beautiful dreams. One of my dreams has already been fulfilled with the help of NEA and ILO, and now another, very different one is coming true - Maxim is good at breakdancing.” Elena’s smile is warm and wide. “As I said, there are many different ways we can see our dreams fulfilled.”

Prior to that, she worked for many years in a sanatorium. She really wanted to capitalize the accumulated experience and start her own business.  She would have not been able to materialize this desire without the moral and financial support of her family. Both her mother and her husband worked abroad, and their savings were invested in a hotel, which, in the meantime, was transformed into a pension. Hence, the family hopes to be able to ensure a decent living at home. „My husband has seen the situation abroad and decided to stay home, as well as my mother, who worked for many years in Italy. This is the choice of our family – to remain at home and build our future here” states Victoria.  The entrepreneurial beginning was not an easy thing, but with the help of Dubasari Territorial Employment Department and the financial subsidy amounting MDL 81,075 (i.e., USD 4,609) provided for by the National Employment Agency (NEA) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), Victoria succeeded to develop her business and hire the needed staff. This subsidy is offered to employers with the purpose of hiring and (re) integration of people from categories needing additional support on the labour market. The Molovata Noua pension has ten employees. Angela Axentiv is one of them, she is a hotel maid. The woman is happy to have a source of income, after she lost her job in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic: “I worked at the sanatorium. Then I was dismissed, and the technological unemployment occurred". At present, the pension has ten rooms, a restaurant, a terrace, spaces for field or table tennis, a swimming pool and a landscaped space on the bank of the Dniester River. It opened its doors a month ago, but it is already accommodating an impressive number of visitors from both banks of Dniester. Victoria Musinschi mentions that, at the beginning of the way, a business requires huge investments, and the obtained subsidy helped them to reduce this burden: “We will use some of these funds to renovate the pool and to purchase the necessary equipment for the landscape. We also envisage to digitalize our hotel system and change the design". The subsidies offered by the NEA represent an active measure provided for by the Law on Employment and Unemployment Insurance, which is being tested this year with the methodological and financial support of the ILO.  Based on an Implementation Agreement, worth 122 thousand US dollars, the ILO is acting as the basic NEA partner in developing and implementing various employment policies. You can find more details about the possibility of obtaining subsidies by contacting one of the Territorial Employment Subdivisions (you can find the addresses by accessing https://www.anofm.md/ro/subdiviziuni) or by calling the Call Centre Labour Market, 08000 1000, free call from landline on the territory of the Republic of Moldova.

How it is like to live with HIV in the Transnistrian region, to be rejected by dearest ones and by the community, to be at the height of despair and despite all odds, to thrive? She is Mila, a young math teacher from Tiraspol who has been living with HIV for 13 years. She accepted her status, gave birth to a daughter, graduated from university, earned good marks, and now enjoys life to the fullest: “I am 33 years old. I live in Tiraspol with my daughter — the most loved person in my life. I work and learn. I have very little free time, but when possible — I paint. My passions and hobbies are my villa, garden, the morning runs. I am living with HIV since 2008. I found out about my status when my husband was hospitalized with pneumocystosis*. The doctors asked me to take the test and it turned out to be positive. My husband transmitted the immunodeficiency virus to me… He died in 2009. I do not openly share my status. The self-stigmatization hinders me. Although most of my relatives, friends and acquaintances know about my HIV-positive status and have an acceptable reaction, the fear of being rejected prevails. Stigmatization impedes me to develop, to enjoy, to feel a full member of society. This feeling is very difficult to overcome. I try, but I don’t always succeed. I don’t even want to talk about my relationship with my relatives… It’s very difficult. My mother still thinks I’m dying soon. She screams everywhere that I’m pitiful because of my HIV status and the therapy I’m undergoing … she tells me a lot of bad words. But I know I’m a good person. I adapted to this status for a very long time, it took me almost seven years. Self-acceptance has had a huge impact on my life. First, this influenced my choice of a husband. I don’t know why I thought I couldn’t have a normal, healthy family. I thought maybe I didn’t deserve it. That’s why my second husband was an antisocial guy. He offended me, he said that no one need such a sick spouse, and I endured, as I thought the same. I suffered everything — his drunkenness and beatings. However, the good part of my life at that time was that I continued to come and communicate with the consultants of the Social Support Center for People living with HIV from Tiraspol. I was interested to learn more about the life with HIV, and I found out a lot of useful information. In 2015, I decided to change my life and leave the construction site where I was working to enter the University of Physics and Mathematics of Tiraspol. I was 27 years old. My colleagues at the Center and my mother-in-law supported me in this decision. After all, when people believe in you, you are ready to move mountains. I was admitted to university, free of budget. After my first year of study, I radically changed my view on life, on HIV. That’s when I decided to leave my husband. And I did it. Then, in 2017, my long-awaited daughter was born. Of course, it was very difficult for me. I gave birth to her at the end of my second year of study. I hardly complete the third year of study, but in the end, I graduated from university, earning excellent grades. And I’m very proud of that because I know how much I’ve worked. As for the feelings, I had then and now… Then I thought that my life was over, and I was periodically depressed. Now I enjoy life, every day I admire the sunrises and sunsets… I enjoy everything I have, even if not all of them are perfect or as I would like them to be. At beginning, to overcome the difficulties, I was looking for power inside me. I wanted to prove to everyone and myself that “I can”, I just have to want it and make an effort. Especially I wasn’t happy with my life, my husband, the drunk workers at work… I really wanted to give up everything and live differently, better. Now everything has become simpler — my power is my daughter. I want to be an example to her. I want her to be proud of me. I don’t lack communication, but I can’t say that I have many friends. The person I trust, my friend is my mother-in-law — the mother of my late husband. For me, the most important thing is for my dearest and closest people to be healthy and happy. Since 2020, Mila attends the activities of the capacity development program to promote human rights in the underrepresented groups on the left bank of the Nistru river, implemented by OHCHR with the financial support of Sweden through the One UN Joint Action “Cross-river support for human rights”. Also, thanks to a grant offered by UNDP through the One UN Joint Action to the CSO “Альянс общественного здоровья” from the left bank of Nistru, Mila attends trainings to become a paralegal specializing in preventing discrimination against people living with HIV in the Transnistrian region. * It is the most common infection in people living with HIV.

Due to severe weather conditions, practically, all the bee families of the Monastery apiary perished this spring. Consequently, the 60 nuns and the 55 young girls of the Theological Seminary were left without one of the most important food of their daily menu: honey. Honey is also a secure source of income for them, vital for the monastery, which at present is in construction.  Moreover, the monastery has also been severely affected by the pandemic crisis. The monastery “Marta and Maria” has started its missionary activity not long ago. Their church "The Shroud of God’s Mother" is too small for the crowd of Christians coming to pray.  That is why, a few years ago, the community of nuns laid down the foundation of a Cathedral. Accordingly, all the money earned from the sale of products grown around the monastery, including the sale of honey, has been invested in the construction of the Cathedral and used for landscaping. The Monastery is a welcoming host for pilgrims from Moldova and abroad, so it was important for the community to renovate it. The help to save the Monastery's apiary came just in time and from where they least expected. The Head Mother found out from the leader of the local Beekeepers' Association about a project launched by the International Labour Organization (ILO) within the Local Employment Partnership (LEP) in the Causeni district for the development of beekeeping business. After long hesitations, the four nuns, in charge of the monastery's apiary, submitted the documents for the business plans competition and followed all the necessary steps. They were pleasantly surprised to find out that they are among the 25 selected beneficiaries and that they will get 10 beehives and as many bee families for free. Furthermore, the nuns of the monastery participated in a training in beekeeping and entrepreneurship, were helped to improve their business plans, to register their business and to obtain the necessary sanitary-veterinary certificates and passports for the apiary. That means they will be able to sell the honey abroad, too. This is particularly important for them, as previously they had to miss several opportunities because of the lack of the necessary documents. Even though Mother Susana has a lot of experience in beekeeping, she says the training was very useful. It encouraged them to review some bee care practices and contemplate diversifying the honey products.  Over the time, the nuns intend to multiply their 40 bee families, enlarge the apiary and  create at least two jobs, so says their business plan. This doesn't seem difficult to them, since they already have a solid foundation: 40 modern hives and as many Carpathian bee families.   Mother Susana claims they have high hopes in relation to beekeeping: “We plan to invest the money earned from the sale of honey in  equipment that would facilitate our work and allow us to diversify the bee products., In time we intend to procure a milk processing machine and other equipment for the monastery's bakery”. She continued: “I believe it is t not in vain the God has opened new horizons for us and offered us this opportunity. The Monastery has all the settings needed for the production of organic honey. It is located in a picturesque place in the middle of the forest and has a rich melliferous base”. She thinks that without the ILO assistance, it would have been much more difficult to revive the monastery's apiary on its own. "I think this project has "sweetened" the lives of many people in our district," says Mother Susana. Business development in beekeeping  is one of the most active initiatives of the Local Employment Partnership (LEP) in Causeni.  "Within the LEP, we identified beekeeping as one of the income-generating sectors for inactive young people, the informally employed, the unemployed, returning migrants and others who have been affected by the pandemic. In addition to the complex assistance offered in launching a beekeeping business, all 25 beneficiaries will be further mentored by the local Beekeepers' Association to increase the honey production and the number of bee families", says Violeta Vrabie, the ILO coordinator of the project "Reactivating Social Dialogue for an Effective Response to COVID -19 in Moldova and  applying it to job creation through Local Employment Partnerships". Launched at the end of current February, the Causeni LEP aims to create and formalize 145 jobs, launch 60 start-ups in sectors with a job creation potential, such as beekeeping, agricultural product processing and the creative industry. This LEP also aims to support the growth of 50 small and micro enterprises. The project budget is approximately USD 146,500. The ILO provides support in the amount of USD130, 000, out of which over US $ 80,000 is provided by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) from the Austrian Development Cooperation funds.