Certainly the future belongs to the united communities, in which everyone understands their role and which promotes mutual help among its members. In a marginal village, with less than 650 inhabitants, the village in Romania with the most young people in foster care, we want to develop a project that brings together in dialogue and involvement the inhabitants, public and private institutions through activities to improve the quality of life that our association promotes.

Murani, Timis County, in western Romania

We aim to increase the degree of local cohesion by creating a place and space for communication and dialogue between residents and different local actors, to put together ideas, personal value in order to improve the quality of life in the community of Murani village. We partially met, in an older research project, the Murani community. Then we noticed the potential of the area and we found, through discussions with the inhabitants that it is a neglected area and is not included in a development strategy. Being a locality with many children and young people, the lack of events and public meeting places negatively affects social life and limits their access to development opportunities.

The direct beneficiaries of the project will be the inhabitants of the village, the private and public institutions from Murani. They will be listened to and challenged to express their personal ideas, options and thoughts on improving civic cohesion and quality of life in the community. Among these speakers being young people in foster families, they can play a positive role in the development of their community in the future.

We will start organizing the project team and preparing the materials (leaflet, poster, questionnaire). Then, the project team will visit the residents and private and public institutions to present the project and provide questionnaires for completion. The questionnaires will contain questions regarding the quality of personal and community life as well as questions regarding the solutions and ideas proposed for improving the cohesion and the quality of community life. After all the visits will be made and the questionnaires will be collected, the processing of the data from the questionnaires will start. The next stage will be the organization of group meetings with thematic discussions on questionnaires data, the choice of the final ideas to be implemented and a workshop of active involvement in the life of the community. Also now there will be meetings with certain specialists who will offer advice in realizing the final ideas to be implemented. In the order of activities, the planning and realization in the community of the ideas selected and implemented together with the inhabitants and representatives of the public and private institutions will start. Towards the end of the project, based on the questionnaires and ideas implemented, we will develop a community development strategy, a simple, short, to the point document, easy to understand by all parties involved.

In the short term, at the end of the project we will have at least 7 ideas from the community fully implemented or partially supported, ideas that once realized will increase the degree of cohesion and involvement of the inhabitants in the community. Public and private institutions will know much better the community they lead and of which they are part.
In the long run, the project creates the premises for the formation of citizens with a civic spirit and involved , who have control over their lives, through involvement and collaboration. Also, the elaboration of a community development strategy, together with the other resources from the project, can be used later by the community for the development of future projects or as a contribution to the creation of a community resource center.

- citizens will understand that if they get involved, the results are immediately seen in the community;
- working together to achieve the 7 ideas will create links between politicians and the citizens they represent. This will encourage citizens to get even more involved. It will hold politicians responsible and bring them closer to the problems of citizens;
- There will be a plan from which local administrative programs can be created to involve citizens and private institutions in the area.

It is important for us the idea of ​​this project because starting from a small community we can develop a model for repairing community ties, model that can be applied to similar or larger communities. The structure of the project and the planned activities will have an impact both on a personal and on a community level - both plans being important in structuring the quality of human life.
We will involve in it three people from our team, a coordinator with experience in coordination and financial management, a social worker and a local facilitator who will be a teacher who grew up and lives in Murani village, all as part-time employees in the project. Then, we will involve two of our volunteers with academic experience in community relations and research.

- Staff costs - 13100 EUR
- External advisors - 1200 EUR
- Office organization (laptop, printer, shelves, chairs,etc) - 1200 EURO
- Office supplies - 300 EURO
- Posters, flyers, web site maintenence - 800 EURO
- Transportation costs - 1300 EURO
- Building utilities ( electricity, heat, water) - 600 EURO
- Communication costs - 400 EURO
- Unexpected costs - 300 EURO
- Costs of implementing local ideas - 17400 EURO

We would appreciate to share ideas, to give one each other feedback and suggestions. If there are comments from other similar experiences, if changes are needed.