On April 2, the FIDE President arrived to Chisinau where he took part in the closing ceremony of Veaceslav Cebanenco Memorial. The working programme in the capital of Moldova President Ilyumzhinov started with the meeting with Prime Minister Mr. Iurie Leance. At the meeting also present were Mr. Ali Nihat Yazici, FIDE Vice President and Chairman of Chess in Schools Commission, Mr. Berik Balgabaev, FIDE President’s Assistant, Mr. Leonid Buzhor, Prime Minister’s advisor, former Minister of Education, and Mr. Valery Coada, General Secretary of Moldavian Chess Federation.
It was noted that Moldova is one of the best examples of cooperation between FIDE and national federation in the implementation of CiS programme. It has passed three stages in Moldova. Initially the FIDE President allocated money from his personal funds to support the programme in the rural schools.
Twenty-five schools from different parts of the country were drawn into it. At the second stage, the government of Moldova supplied forty-five schools more with the equipment. At the third stage, the FIDE CiS Commission involved in the programme more than 100 schools. PM Leance agreed to support this project. “We need to think over how to make it a national programme. And I believe chess should be inculcated to kids from kindergarten.” In this connection, he intends to spend a part of grant 25 million euros allocated by the European Institutes for the development of pre-school education.
Fantastic work by President KI.