Life

Sister cities program set

By Bill Moss, Published: July 12, 2012

Hendersonville Sister Cities will present a program at Henderson County Library auditorium at 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 26, on Hendersonville's direct connection to Moldova.The Moldova World Children's Fund is headquartered in Hendersonville, and attendees will learn more about that 14-year-old program, meet a number of guests from Moldova who participate in it, and hear about other local connections to the former Soviet-bloc country. The program is free and open to the public.
Ray West, retired U.S. Naval Reserve captain, began helping the children of the Republic of Moldova in 1998 as that country emerged from years of Soviet domination. West and Albert Gooch, president of the MWCF board, will discuss the ways Moldova World Children's Fund has worked with the people of Moldova and how the program has developed.
A special guest of the evening will be Julius Vasilcenco, recipient of a MWCF donated SpeechEasy device, which is being manufactured by a N.C. firm. The device serves persons who struggle with stuttering problems. It was created along the lines of the theories developed by the "doctor" in the Academy Award winning movie "The King's Speech."
Also attending will be Boris Subbotin, a teacher and coach on the faculty of the International School serving the children of foreign embassy staffs in Chisinau, Moldova, and Irina Rusanovschi, MWCF's representative in Moldova and a psychologist for the children's wing of an oncology department of a major hospital in Chisinau, Moldova's capital.
North Carolina became a sister state with Moldova in 1999 with the creation of the North Carolina-Moldova Partnership for Peace program, which is currently led by Secretary of State Elaine Marshall. Since then, several North Carolina cities have formed sister city relationships with cities in Moldova.
Hendersonville has supported the state's partnership program in a number of ways. Last year Hendersonville Sister Cities hosted a gathering of Moldovan farmers and agricultural producers who were visiting Western North Carolina and other parts of the state through a N.C. Cooperative Extension Service program. In addition, the Hendersonville Rotary and Lions clubs have worked with their Moldova counterparts on various service projects.
For more information about Hendersonville Sister Cities or the program on Moldova World Children's Fund, visit www.hendersonvillesistercities.org or phone HSC Program Coordinator Allen Mitchem at 693-9072.