From 10 to 16 August, Ungheni is dedicating a full week to its young people. The city hall and the Municipal Youth Centre are holding “Youth Week” — the Facebook event is called “International Youth Day – Ungheni 2026,” under the local brand “ZiT,” now in its second edition — around 12 August, when International Youth Day is marked worldwide.
It is the kind of event easy to dismiss as “just another summer party.” In Ungheni, though, a youth week says something deeper about the city: a community that has built, year after year, an identity as a “city of youth” — and that, at the same time, is losing its young people faster than almost anywhere else in the country. It is worth looking at from both angles.
What “Youth Week” is and when it takes place
The event runs from 10 to 16 August, with its centrepiece on 12 August, International Youth Day. The venue given by the organizers is the city hall building, at 7 Națională Street, but past editions were spread across several places in town, including the Palace of Culture.
One important point, right from the start: 12 August is International Youth Day, established by the UN in 1999 and marked worldwide every year. It should not be confused with Moldova’s National Youth Day, which falls on the second Sunday of November. Ungheni’s “Youth Week” is anchored to the international one. The theme the UN has proposed for 2026 is “Different Contexts, Common Aspirations” — the idea that young people from very different places share, at heart, the same wishes. In Ungheni, it is a theme that reads almost like a diagnosis, as we will see below.
The program, announced by the organizers on the official poster, features one event each day:
- Monday, 10 August — the week’s opening, an “Open Doors Day,” with an exchange of experience with young people from Călărași, at the Municipal Youth Centre.
- Tuesday, 11 August — “Storytelling: Behind Success,” an evening of success stories, with guests Marcela Nistor, Alina Siminitchi and the Emforia band, at the Palace of Culture.
- Wednesday, 12 August — on International Youth Day itself, Ungheni’s young people travel to Bălți, the city that holds the Youth Capital title in 2026, for the national event.
- Thursday, 13 August — the week’s high point: a concert in Independence Square (Piața Independenței) and “ColorFest,” with a bill that, according to the organizers, features Ciprian Sobețchi, Mihai Șalari, the “Respect” band, the “Unfolk” group and CADSUS, and, as headliners, Magnat and Feoctist.
- Friday, 14 August — “VeloVinerea” (Bike Friday), a day on two wheels across the town.
- Saturday, 15 August — a screening of a motivational film, at the pavilion in Scuarul Înfrățirii (Fraternity Square).
- Sunday, 16 August — “Tinerii construiesc viitorul” (“Young People Build the Future”), a workshop of reflection and team-building, again at the Municipal Youth Centre.
Most activities are, as a rule, open and free of charge; the exact times are announced by the organizers on their own channels.
Here, too, a clarification that avoids a common mix-up: Ungheni has two different bodies for young people. The organizer of this week is the Municipal Youth Centre, run by the city hall, which operates in the Palace of Culture. Separately, there is the District Youth Centre, run by the District Council, with its own events for young people. They are distinct institutions, with their own budgets and programs.
Where the “city of youth” identity comes from
Ungheni does not call itself a “city of youth” out of thin air. The municipality has held the national title of Youth Capital twice — something few localities have achieved.
The first time was in 2011, at the inaugural edition of the “Youth Capital” program, drawn up by the Ministry of Education and implemented by the National Youth Agency. The second was in 2023, when Ungheni regained the title through an open competition, with state-budget support of about 1.3 million lei, channelled through the National Youth Agency, and with a launch attended by about 500 young people from across the country. (For comparison, the 2026 Youth Capital title is held by the municipality of Bălți — Ungheni’s “Youth Week” is the city’s own celebration, not a national designation.)
On top of these two titles came foreign investment in youth infrastructure. In November 2022, the “Youth Festival” in Ungheni gathered more than 1,000 young people, with European Union support through the “EU4Moldova: Key Regions” program, implemented by UNICEF and UNDP. Ungheni’s then-mayor, Alexandru Ambros, described the town — in a statement published by the EU Delegation — as “a city of youth,” ranking among the country’s localities with the highest number of young people relative to their population. This work over many years, visible in the day-to-day activity of the Municipal Youth Centre, is the capital on which each new “Youth Week” is built.
Why, here, a youth week is more than a party
And now, the other angle — the one the posters leave out, but which is the real stake.
Ungheni celebrates youth in a district the young leave first. The figures from the National Bureau of Statistics leave no room for doubt. In 2025, Ungheni district was home (provisional data) to roughly 8,244 young people aged 15–24 — 11.1% of the population — and 15,166 young people aged 15–34, 20.4%. At the same time, people over 60 made up 24.5%. In other words, the district has more than twice as many people over 60 as young people under 25.
More telling is the pace. The 15–34 group, the demographic heart of any community, has halved in just 11 years: from about 30,446 people in 2014 to 15,166 in 2025 — a drop of 50.2%. Across the country as a whole, the same group fell by 44.1% over the same period. In other words, Ungheni is losing its young people faster than the Moldovan average. (The statistical series also includes a revision following the 2024 census, so the order of magnitude matters more than the decimals; the “usual residence” in the data is not the same as the population that actually lives here.)
It is not only a local phenomenon. As of 1 January 2025, the whole Republic of Moldova had only 544 thousand young people left — 22.8% of the population — 4.2% fewer than a year earlier, and their share is falling year after year. The engine, official statistics also say, is migration: according to a UNFPA study, every third person who wants to emigrate is under 35, and those aged 20–29 are almost four times more likely to leave than those over 50. As a rule, it is precisely the educated and active young people who leave — exactly the ones a city wants to keep.
This is where the thread ties back to this year’s UN theme, “Different Contexts, Common Aspirations.” The Ungheni paradox is that the aspirations of young people here look just like those of their peers in Chișinău, Bucharest or Berlin — except that, for now, the road to them often runs through leaving. In such a context, a youth week is no longer mere decoration: it is one of the few levers through which a small community shows its young people a reason to stay — or, at least, to come back. The municipality is betting on this card and on other fronts too, from job fairs for young people to the “LevelUP” career festival, against the backdrop of a documented depopulation of the entire district.
Who “the young” are and how you can take part
In the Republic of Moldova, the law (Law no. 215/2016 on youth) defines a young person as someone aged between 14 and 35 — a broad range that covers both high-school students and young adults with families. “Youth Week” is aimed, in principle, at everyone.
Taking part in the activities is, as a rule, open and free of charge. For the exact times and any registrations, those interested — young people, parents, volunteers — can follow the pages of the Municipal Youth Centre and of the Ungheni city hall, or contact the Municipal Centre directly, which coordinates the event. Most editions have also included a call for volunteers to help run things, a good way in for anyone who wants to be at the heart of the action rather than just a spectator.
This article is based on the organizers’ event page, on the official Ministry of Education data regarding the “Youth Capital” program and the 2023 statement, on the United Nations’ information about International Youth Day 2026, on the profiles from the National Youth Agency, and on data from the National Bureau of Statistics (age structure of Ungheni district, young people in the Republic of Moldova). The daily program comes from the official event poster; the data on migration and NEET young people are national, not broken down by Ungheni district.