Excursion to Pushkin Museum in the village of Dolna

Taking advantage of good weather, before the arrival of the winter season, the Charity Centre for Refugees (CCR), in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, offered its beneficiaries a special opportunity to visit the Pushkin Museum where the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin lived intermittently during his exile period (1820-1823) in Moldova, at that time being the Besarabia region of the Russian Empire.

           

On the 17^th of November, around 70 beneficiaries joined in to discover this museum, being one of numerous cultural and historical places of interest in Moldova. As the CCR is implementing partner UNHCR under the Local Integration Project, it organizes this kind of trips in order to promote local integration by raising the awareness of its persons of concern about the history and culture of their country of asylum.

The Pushkin Museum is a place worth visiting for different reasons. First of all, the rooms of the museum exhibit different belongings of Pushkin and the family that hosted the poet, which reflect the diversity of cultural influences on Moldova, mainly related to the Turkish and Russian Empires dominance. Apart from that, the beauty and tranquility of the park around by museum are truly inspiring, just as they were two centuries ago, when Alexander Pushkin was enchanted by the Moldova’s countryside.

In the two tour visits, one for Russian and another one for Romanian speakers, made by the guide for the CCR persons of concern, the latter received many interesting information on the life style of Pushkin and its hosting family in the XIX century.

Afterwards, the group could enjoy the autumn landscape all around the museum. Both children and adults were very pleased to have fun and walk around the vast park and its garden.

Of course, this excursion was also an opportunity for recent and established refugees in Moldova to get to know each other and to enlarge their acquaintances, which is really important for the new-comers in finding support for their integration.

CCR wants to express its gratitude for the Ministry of Culture’s support in organizing this excursion and for being open and helpful in their work for the benefit of refugees and asylum seekers.

Refugees and local population united by passion for football

A couple of years ago, the Charity Centre for Refugees (CCR), as the UNHCR implementing partner, organized a football competition, within the Grant programme for Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE). The mentioned competition was very important at that time, since it was aiming at building respect of 2 local communities, Mereni and Razeni villages, towards refugees and asylum seekers who were about to move in there to social houses, refurbished under the Local Integration Programme. In order for this innovative plan to be successful, UNHCR and CCR had to prepare the field and create a more welcoming environment for the beneficiaries, thus facilitating their integration in the rural areas.

This year, another NGO – Fatima organized, through the same Grant Programme, a similar football competition, in which 4 teams of children and 3 teams of adults gladly participated. CCR team was one of them, bringing together the best football players within our group of beneficiaries.  The competition was stiff, but our team managed to take the second prize.

This kind of sport competitions will always be supported by CCR, as they are helping build a common ground for people of different ethnicities, religions, skin colors, but with the same passion for sport. We believe that sport is the most valuable common language in a multicultural environment, as it forges the team spirit of the players and allows the people to interact while enjoying themselves.