A young woman who used to work as an MTV veejay has become the mayor of a little commune in Arad. Although this story would determine some people to laugh, Irina Onescu has proved everyone that she is the best young mayor in Romania.
Although she is young and inexperienced in politics she has done more things for the community than all previous mayors. Irina Onescu, mayor for Petris village has run for the mayor office as an independent.
Of course, she had to fight the locals’ prejudices and old mentalities but she managed to convince them to vote for her. Her campaign was run on Facebook because people would not let her in their houses, afraid of what their neighbors might say. Some people were against her because she was a woman. And some said she was too young and she will just focus on building night clubs for the young. Some of them even said she was doing drugs.
Luckily she won the elections. Although she managed to win with a difference of just 3 votes.
Even though she lived all her life in Bucharest, she managed to adapt to the village life and make important changes. Her parents are geologists and they bought a house in this commune while they were researching the mountains in the area.
After graduating Irina opened an event organising business. For a while, she worked for MTV but she returned to this area to organize cycling marathons. She likes to promote the village and the people.
Now locals are very happy to have her as a mayor. She says that her election has encouraged people to care for their community. The commune only has 1,000 people and many of the locals are jobless.
Irina’s first aim was to find them jobs. For example, she found a job for mrs Marioara who used to live off benefits. She now works in a cable factory in Deva. Marioara said
I want to say something: I did not vote for her. I told her I am sorry. She was coming from Bucharest, she was too young, she did not understand life in the countryside. And I did not vote for her.
Irina admitted that there are people who are not willing to work because they are disappointed with life and they have been told all their lives that they are not able to do good things in life and so they have lost hope and faith in themselves. This is why she encourages them to become better.
Irina talks often on Facebook with the locals and encourages them to get a job. She personally has found many jobs for them. So far she has found jobs at the cable factory for 16 locals.
Moreover, Irina has managed to convince a company to open a factory in their village. Because of this another 40 people will have jobs.
Irina is like a mother. Not only she helps them but she also tells them off. For example, she asked them to clean the streets and not to sit around and wait for others to do it for them.
The only school in the village has 130 children. The mayor decided to change the floors, she fixed the walls and put central heating.
Now, Irina has traveled to China where she participated at an international village conference. She has managed to get one village from Argentina to fraternize with Petris. Now she hopes to bring tourists and investors to the village because she is aware that the area has a huge potential: the village has old wooden churches and a hundred years old mill that still works.
Now she hopes to open up a shop in Timisoara city where she could sell the locals’ products.
source: protv
positivenewsromania.com 
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