Romania, Târgu Mureș

History

The Targu Mures Bridgebuilders Club was led by Briena Stoica, an English teacher at Papiu High School. Most of the Bridgebuilders were students at Papiu, and Briena brought a group of eight to the 2005 International Youth Festival in Nitra, Slovakia. At least five of these formed the core members of the new Bridgebuilders Club which began shortly after the 2005 Festival. The youth began meeting at Briena’s home every Tuesday evening but due to the growth in numbers, they soon began meeting at the school. In 2006-2007 about 15 students met regularly, representing all four grades of the school.

The name F.U.E.L. was adopted by the Targu Mures Bridgebuilders Club during the 2007-7 school year. Their step was founded during the summer of 2006 when the step team So-Double-U visited Romania for an exchange. So-Double-Trained conducted step training for the new Romanian Bridgebuilders Club as well as for the Icelandic team (now called IceStep) which also participated in the exchange.

As a step team, F.U.E.L. has been making an impact in their school and community since September 2006. In summer 2007 they participated in a StepFest in Netherlands, when they were re-united with IceStep for more training with So-Double-U at their home base in Houten.

Geography

Tirgu Mures is one of the major cities in Romania. Tirgu Mures is in the Hungarian section of Romania and this often presents conflicts.

People

Briena Stoica is Regional Coordinator without a team.

Present situation

After a year of no activities the interest in building bridges has been revived and plans are made to build a Regional Support Team and start a Bridgebuilders Club again in the fall of 2009. Tirgu Mures has a good experience with the EVS program of the European Commission and would like to join this project again.