At the end of 2022, WAVE launched a new project in cooperation with the Moldovan umbrella organisation for violence protection “National Coalition Life Without Violence” titled TAVAM – Together Against Violence in Austria and Moldova. This project aims to strengthen the capacity of Moldovan women’s specialist services and to advance the transfer of knowledge between Austrian and Moldovan organisations. For this purpose, four trainings were organised between March and December 2023, involving experts in the field of violence against women from Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Moldova. Women’s specialist services from the National Coalition attended these trainings.

Within the frame of the project, the National Coalition organised the ‘International Conference for the prevention and combat of violence against girls and women and domestic violence’ in Chisinau, Moldova from 25-26 October 2023. This was the largest conference organised by the National Coalition to date and a landmark event in the field of preventing and combating violence, with over 40 speakers, more than 250 in-person participants, and over 1500 online participants.

The activities are also dedicated to making an important contribution to the implementation of the Istanbul Convention in Moldova, ratified by the Republic of Moldova in October 2021. In order to better accompany this process, there is a need for women’s specialist services to learn and share strategies from other countries that have already implemented the Convention, as well as consider how to do this in light of the challenges arising from the war in Ukraine.

The project has been extended to June 2024 and is funded by the Austrian Ministry for Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection.