Minister Natalia Intotero meets representatives of Romanian clegry and community in Washington

Minister for Romanians Everywhere (MRP) Natalia Intotero who met on Tuesday in Washington with members of the Romanian clergy and community in the United States, insisted on the need to maintain and promote the linguistic and spiritual identity of Romanians everywhere and presented the initiatives of the Government in Bucharest aimed at the return and professional reinsertion of the Romanians form the diaspora, a press release sent to AGERPRES on Wednesday informs.

"The main topic of the discussions with the parish priests of the Holy Cross Church in Alexandria, St Andrew in Potomac and the Orthodox Church in Hagerstown, was the need to maintain and promote the linguistic and spiritual identity of Romanians everywhere. The minister underscored the role the church has in the carrying out of educational projects, education representing a priority field for MRP. In this sense, the minister offered those present materials and books in Romanian for Sunday schools," the cited source specifies.

According to the release, at talks with the representatives of the associative environment in the territory, also attended by Bogdan Banu, the leader of the Romanian community in Washington, James Rosapepe and Daniela Kammrath with the Alliance organisation, the minister reiterated the importance of strengthening the relations between the Romanians in the United States and the promotion of national culture and traditions by creating a framework of good practice between the community's members.

At the same time, the minister presented the participants the timetable of the relevant ministry's own actions, with an emphasis on efforts to preserve the Romanian language in communities abroad and had applied discussions about non-reimbursable funding and the initiatives of the Gov't in Bucharest aimed at the return and professional reinsertion of the Romanians form the diaspora, offered by the ministry. The "ARC" camps programme was also presented, which intends to create and promote ties between the Romanian ethnics and citizens in various countries, to provide knowledge about the Romanian culture and civilisation and to promote the values of the Romanian cultural heritage.

The agenda of the day also included a meeting with the Chief of the European Division of the US Library Of Congress, Grant Harris, by whose side minister Natalia Intotero visited the Romanian books section which contains over 40,000 Romanian titles and referred, in context, to the joint efforts aimed at preserving and promoting the richness of the Romanian cultural heritage beyond the borders of the country.