The annual international inter-ethnic camp “Sources of Tolerance” began its work in Moldova on July 18, at the village of Leordaia. The camp is hosted by the F’estival tourist center and will continue until July 29. Over 100 participants and education workers are participating in the project, and they represent the Bulgarian, Gagauz, Greek, Jewish, Moldovan, Polish, Romani, Russian, and Ukrainian communities, as well as refugees from Syria and Uzbekistan. They have come from different areas of Moldova, including the Gagauzia region and Transnistria, Ukraine, and Russia to learn about the cultures and traditions of ethnic groups who live in the Republic of Moldova.

The aim of the children’s interethnic camp is to create a suitable atmosphere for dialogue between ethnic groups, to foster inter-ethnc tolerance, to counteract xenophobia, to form an active civil position among the youth of various national communities, and to spread knowledge about Moldova’s ethnic diversity.

The “Sources of Tolerance” camp is organized by the Diversitate Center for Informal Education together with the Kyiv offfice of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the embassy of Poland, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugrees, Civil Rights Defenders, the Jewish community of Moldova, the KEDEM Jewish Cultural Center, Harry Galanter, and AVE-Copiii.

This is the sixth time that the “Sources of Tolerance” camp is being held in Moldova. Similar projects have also been implemented in Ukraine since 2002 by the Kyiv office of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, as part of the Congress program to foster tolerance. The EAJC Kyiv office also began implementing this project in the Caucasus region in 2012.