The Local Development Programme and its results, promoted through a short video material

Last week, the Romanian Social Development Fund (FRDS) launched a short clip promoting the results of the “Local Development, Poverty Reduction and Increasing Roma Inclusion” Programme (Local Development), a programme that is aproaching its end. Addressed to the general public, the video captures the way some of the projects carried out with the financial support of the EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021 have produced positive changes in the lives of people in difficult situations. The video is capturing the interventions carried out in three of the more than 1,000 localities throughout the country to which the Programme funds were directed.

The heroes of the clip are children, adults and seniors who were given the support they needed by professionals employed in the funded projects, the captured images introducing the audience to a world of empathy and unconditional support. It is about the children without material means, who were helped to regularly attend kindergarten or school in the community. About the victims of domestic violence, people who most of the time hide their suffering in silence, and who, thanks to integrated support programs, managed to get a chance at a new life, away from their aggressors. About elderly people who ended up on the streets, being offered the shelter and help they needed.

Started in 2018, the Local Development Programme ensured the financing of 111 projects in the social field, in a total amount of 81.4 million euros. There are projects through which support was offered in order to reduce school dropout among children at risk, the access of members of disadvantaged communities to basic social, medical and housing services was ensured, efforts were made to increase the social inclusion of the Roma living in marginalized communities, complex mechanisms have been implemented to ensure the protection of human rights in the case of the most disadvantaged social categories (persons with disabilities, members of the LGBTQ community, persons deprived of liberty, etc.) and steps have been taken important for the internalization of the principles of good governance by the local and central public administration structures in Romania.

Find out here more information about each project financed by the Local Development Program.