The 2022-2023 academic year has brought another amazing “Founders’ Lecture Series” with special guests from a wide spectrum of professional fields. Their success stories inspired our students and teachers, making them think and understand better important topics and discover new perspectives.

This program aims at fulfilling Heritage founders’ mission of providing an international education and preparing students to become real global citizens. All the topics covered during the year have been meaningful and full of wisdom, keeping students engaged and curious. Therefore, the Q&A sessions at the end of each of them were very interactive and fun.

HE Ambassador Kent Logsdon, US Embassy

HE Ambassador Logsdon was the first guest of this academic year’s series in September and discussed with our students in the Eminescu Library. He talked about how he became a diplomat, how important the knowledge of languages is and how languages shaped his destiny. As a true global citizen, Ambassador Logsdon took them on an imaginary journey around the world, to places he visited, giving them insights into his life and jobs he had, how much he loved all the places and the people he met there. He enjoys being in Moldova at the moment, at such a crucial period in time.

Ilinca Mazureac, student at Harvard University      

Within the 2nd session of the “Founders’ Lecture Series” Heritage students and teachers welcomed Ilinca – a brilliant Moldovan student who got a full scholarship to study molecular biology at Harvard University. She took our students on a virtual tour around her university campus, gave details about the events organised there, besides the academic lectures and compulsory attendance for students. She also gave precious advice regarding applications for US Universities, which has been a wonderful motivation for the attendees!

Ioana Vatamanu-Margineanu, Film producer, Stockholm University of Economics in Riga

Continuing our list of outstanding speakers, Ioana Vatamanu Margineanu has been the 3rd guest of the “Founders’ Lecture Series”. She shared her journey to Riga University she attended, but also how she felt as a student in the Covid-19 pandemic online and offline, her Erasmus experience in Innsbruck, Austria, and most importantly, how she returned home and got into film-making. This young and talented woman is an example of how one chooses their path in life, how the university studies can’t be an obstacle in choosing another direction in the career, and how living the moment is the most important thing. Ioana made our students familiar with Erudit Cafe, spoke about her short film making, then towards the end she eventually found some new actors for her future films. An inspiration for everybody!

Josh Peterson, Special Agent and Head of Security at the US Embassy, Moldova

The “Founders’ Lecture Series” program continued with special agent Josh Peterson, who before reaching Moldova, has worked in New York, Albania, Afghanistan, Denver, and Washington DC. He has also worked at a prison, a police department, and the U.S. Secret Service. 

Josh Peterson speaks English and Romanian and talked to Heritage students and other students across Moldova, about the importance of international mindedness, dialogue, languages and being open-minded. He mentioned the importance of choosing a profession one likes, and that each person can find what they are looking for, so as to change society in a positive and meaningful way.  It was a very powerful message to hear and exactly in the spirit of the mission of our school.

Olesya Shevchenko, President of the International Women's Club of Moldova

In February, we held the 5th Founder’s Lecture and our guest speaker was Mrs. Olesya Shevchenko, the Ukrainian Ambassador’s wife and an inveterate promoter of culture, dignity and love for one’s country. She is also the President of the International Women’s Club of Moldova. She talked to our students about the situation in Ukraine, what the embassy was doing here to support refugees coming to Moldova, how she personally gets involved in helping with charity donations, as well as many other activities she engages in.

Our speaker gave us many details about the presidential family of Ukraine, too. Towards the end, Mrs. Shevchenko showed us a national song that she sang in Romanian for the Independence Day of Ukraine in August. Our students listened with interest and we all felt we related to her story and understood how she felt about the situation.

Corina Cepoi, Internews Moldova

We had the honour to meet Corina Cepoi at the 6th Founders' Lecture – director of Internews in Moldova. She had a warm conversation with our young people, explaining how fake news affects society and which are reliable media outlets, but also how they can develop their journalism skills.

Our guest got lots of questions from the audience and the students received lots of precious information that would help them get involved and participate in various events. Corina stressed the importance of learning languages in order to have access to quality information. We are very grateful for her time and dedication to help us raise good global citizens at Heritage!

Baroness Janet Royall, Principal of Somerville College, member and former Leader of House of Lords, UK

Baroness Janet Royall of Blaisdon visited Heritage in April. On this occasion, she was the guest of the 7th session of the “Founders’ Lecture Series”, which has  been very inspiring.

The Baroness has been a supporter of Heritage for a long time, and through her work as a member of the House of Lords, she supported girls’ right to education, ethnical monitories and has been a vocal voice against discrimination of any type.

Baroness Royall visited our classrooms and interacted with students and staff, students sang songs as part of their music lessons and talked about their favourite subjects in school, their hobbies and backgrounds. She held her lecture in the library, inspiring our learners to never give up on their dreams and to have high aspirations. She told them about her studies and her work in the House of Lords, her own family, her work to support girls’ right to study but also for her work on offering opportunities to students from national schools to enter Oxford University. Our students commented that the Baroness has given lots of hope regarding their future careers.

Historian  Keith Harrington, Ireland

Lecture 8 has been an amazing Founders' Lecture with the Irish historian Keith Harrington. Mr. Harrington spoke about our history from the Soviet past till 2023, offering us a journey through our 30+ years of independence.

He visited Moldova several times, doing research in the Moldovan archives on both sides of the Nistru river, collecting reliable information, getting first-hand access to sources. He delivered a wonderful history lecture in one hour, worth years of history lessons in school. He gave valuable answers and advice in the Q&A session at the end for all the teachers from different schools in Moldova joining the session with their students.

Edward Inglett, Deputy Head of Mission, Moldova

Our 9th guest speaker was Mr. Edward Inglett, who came to Moldova in early 2023 as the new Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy in Moldova.

Mr. Inglett had a discussion with our students in the Eminescu library about books, school life, and opportunities for young people. The students were curious about his career path and asked lots of questions, while Mr. Inglett was impressed with their intelligence, curiosity and politeness.

We are proud to host and offer other schools in the country the opportunity to participate in the “Founders’ Lecture Series” program and access to valuable information, but also to be an example of social responsibility, so as to create together the best possible educational environment for students in Moldova.

We thank our outstanding guests for sharing their visions and experiences and for the privilege of having them. This is international education. This is Heritage.