Interview with Bucur Florin Octavian 

Thank you for accepting our invitation to participate in our interview. Firstly, please present yourself and tell us, what is your connection with sports, and if you practised any.

Once again, greetings, welcome to Moșnița. I’m happy to be your guest for today’s interview. My name is Bucur Florin Octavian. I’m the mayor of Moșnița Nouă and regarding your question, if I practised a sport, yes, I did, I started since 1st grade to practice football. I got to go to a sports school, so somehow you got me right, I’m one of the few that likes sports and I get involved a lot in sports, but life offered me at one point another way. I stopped practising sports in the 9th grade and not because I wanted to, but because I suffered an injury on the football field, a double fracture of the tibia which literally got me out of the sports life. I say this with regret because I would have liked to continue my sports career, but maybe that event happened with a reason so I can follow another path in life.

For the second question, I would like to ask you what is the involvement of the local administration in the village and in the life of youth with fewer opportunities?

At least since 4 years ago since I took over the administration of Moșnița, from the first moment we said that Moșnița needs to have a local sports club and since last year we have it. At this moment there are over 200 kids which do sports there. Many of the youth are from that category you mentioned before. We offered the sports lessons for free to encourage the kids to come towards the sport. Sport means health, and that’s why we want as many kids to practice it. We have many sports branches among them are football, handball, basketball, contact sports, even rugby. It’s a good thing, the kids come and the parents have understood our message and we worked with pleasure to achieve it. We have an infrastructure containing a multifunctional sports hall and 4 sports fields which the kids use to do sports in open space. I forgot to mention that since recently we have the athletics branch, where we already obtained really good results at a national championship. We also have good results with other sports but this was our first very good result in athletics.

Thank you. I would like to ask you what are the facilities where the youth of the village can practice sports. You said that they have this sports hall where they have the opportunity to practice sports.

Yes, we have a pretty good infrastructure regarding sports in the village. We have this sports hall which is used by youth from the local school and by the youth from the village sports club. We have the 4 open space fields, which we take care of and make sure that the activities are held in the best conditions. Moreover, we are in the auction with a swimming pool, so a new sport will be born with the construction of this pool and we have another sports facility in construction which will have 4 multifunctional fields with synthetic grass, also for the kids, to give them the opportunity to practice sports in the best conditions. All the infrastructure of which I talked about is provided to the local sports club by the Town Hall, and the local sports club provides it further to the youth of our community. So this is the first thing with which we came to their aid. Moreover, at the sports club, they don’t have to pay a fee, it’s completely free, of course, that when the kids fo in a training camp, we provide the means of transport, we have a few small buses for that, when it is necessary, we want though to buy a bus for the local sports club to make the transport of the youth easier and we will further do everything in our power to avoid as much as we can the costs for them to carry on their activity without putting pressure on the budget of the parents and families. We will buy equipment for them as soon as possible to show that we are a legit local sports club, which we will also offer for free, so I could say that from the point of view of the administration of the Local Council and the Town Hall, we will try to make it the best possible for them, without thinking of profits or other things.

Thank you. For the last question, I would like to ask how are you the youth with fewer opportunities (financial, social or cultural) encouraged to practice sports?

For this kids we prepared annually, even though the sports club is relatively new – we had sports associations in the village to which we offered our support in regards to help this kids practice any sports in our village, and we as a supportive body as the Local Council we handed out awards, annually, where we tried to help them even financially to make it easier for them to practice sports. Sports involve expenses also because it’s clear that if you want to practice sports professionally, you need support. We got involved even in this regard and to the ones that didn’t have that many possibilities or reduced opportunities, we offered sometimes, based on the Town Hall budget some money to offer them the possibility to advance in what they were doing. 

We thank you for your answers and for your time and wish you success with all the activities that you are involved with.

Thank you very much. I’m glad we met. I have in front of me a magazine which is called “Born for Sports”, we are here as well and I want to show our involvement because we have a dedicated page for Moșnița Nouă and I was very happy to be chosen by this magazine, me alongside that the local sports club to be part of this editorial which will not end here and will continue based on the results that the local sports club will achieve.

Interview with Marius Ciocoiu

Thank you for accepting our invitation. Let me ask you what is your connection with sports, if you practised any sports and also, please, present yourself.

My name is Marius Ciocoiu, I’m a contact martial arts instructor. Yes, I practised sports professionally. I played handball at Poli Timișoara, after that at the military school I trained in martial arts and I became an instructor for contact martial arts.

What should the instructors and trainers do to attract and mentor as many youngsters to practice sports?

Firstly, the instructors should be in the kid’s heart, to become a family in the gym, to attract the kid through different ways so that he would be happy of the benefits of sports instead of seeing sport as a burden. To make him love the sport so he can see its benefits. 

Thank you. I would like to ask you if you have any professional athletes in the local community?

Yes, there are a few which stand in front of the other kids. We have world champions, vice world champions, in kickbox and also in karate, we have national champions in different sports, especially kids from rural communities have the ability to be more focused than the kids from the city.

Thank you. As the last question, I would like to ask how do you think that the youth with fewer opportunities (financial, social or cultural) should be encouraged to practice any sport?

First of all, the kids must be attracted towards sports, and for the ones that have fewer opportunities, there must be found people and opportunities to support them and make it easy for them to practice sport. To practice a sport and have competitive results needs some financial expenses that not everyone can afford, the reason why there must be found financial support in the local community and other partners.

Interview with Beatrice Coca

Thank you for accepting the invitation to participate in this interview. For starters please present yourself and tell us your connection to sports and if you practised any sport. 

Hello. Thank you for coming and for inviting us to participate in this interview. My name is Coca Beatrice, I’m the Director of the Local Sports Club Moșnița and I practised tennis at a young age, after that I got involved in different sports, finally practising the typical fitness. 

Thank you. I would like to ask you what are you doing to facilitate the access of young people in sports activities?

I get involved 100% in this young Club, which in November celebrates 1 year and we are happy and proud of it. There are 238 kids from the village and surroundings of Moșnița and who are here and practice sports, so yes, we are happy to support them with everything they need, engaging the instructors and signing up the kids to the Club. 

Thank you. What are the sports that youngsters can practice at the Club?

We have athletics, kickbox, which is contact martial arts, karate football, handball, basketball and rugby.

Thank you. How do you think the youth with fewer opportunities (financial, social or cultural) should be encouraged to practice any sport?

Personally, I ask them to visit our Sports Club website and to call the shown number which is mine, and talk to me. Recently we talked with a gentleman from the community which offered us some sponsorships and sent us encouraging videos from people with prestige in sports., the last one being from Cătălin Moroșanu. So first of all I think they should be given moral support because the kids need to know that they can do it and after that encouraged through any financial aid and support in any way.

Alright, this was it, thank you again for accepting the interview and we wish you success in all the activities of the Club.