5746 Beneficiaries | 9 Toy Libraries | 1035 Scholarships | 85 Internships | 40 Employment Contracts
The final event under the project “EU Regional Action for Roma Education: Increased Education Opportunities for Roma Students and Roma Youth in Western Balkans and Turkey” (RARE) took place online on 10th December 2021. It assembled representatives of the EU Commission, the EU Delegation in Turkey, national ministries of education, educational experts and academics, implementing partners organizations, and REF’s project beneficiaries.
Since the beginning of the three-year project in 2018, Roma Education Fund established multiple collaborations with primary and secondary schools, governmental institutions, and employers. Through the project interventions, a total of 5746 Roma educational beneficiaries were reached, of which 1411 pre-school children, 1098 primary school students, 1773 Roma parents, 1268 high-schoolers and 196 tertiary education students. Nine Toy Libraries were established in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, North Macedonia, and Turkey. In addition to the Roma children, Roma parents were also involved in activities that consolidate parental skills. Moreover, 355 secondary school scholarships were awarded in the academic year 2019/20, and 484 in 2020/21 and 63 secondary education students were placed on internships. Also, 35 high schoolers were employed.
The project facilitated the transition to the labor market of tertiary education beneficiaries through 16 trainings on soft skills and labor market support and by signing 3 memoranda of understanding with partner employers. Due to the activities, 22 university students were placed on internships, and five of them got employed.
“Since we started the project, important changes have taken place and the most challenging has been the COVID crisis. We all know that COVID has had immense socio-economic effect, affecting mostly the vulnerable population. And we realised that this project has to move from already challenging situation to an enormous crisis’ situation. Not only that vulnerable Roma do not have access to computers, but sometimes they do not have access to electricity, most often to internet connection. Other component, such as parental support, became also difficult to implement. And that gave us a clear lesson learned: the new future will require the education to go beyond this traditional approach, with new needs and new tools to be addressed in this new environment” – Marta Garcia Fidalgo, adviser on Roma integration from the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR, the project’s donor) of the European Commission. Marta Garcia-Fidalgo urged the partnering countries to prioritize education when renewing the national strategies on Roma inclusion.
In response to COVID-19, the RARE project contributed to overcoming the challenges through budget allocations to REF’s Emergency Fund. Through the Emergency Fund, REF and its implementing partnering organizations in the Western Balkans and Turkey, as well as in other countries, performed the role of liaison between Roma communities and educational institutions. Tablets, special mentorship and learning materials were provided to support the newly introduced digital learning. Moreover, innovative approaches were introduced and proved efficient in easing the new school setting.
“Educational post-COVID policies must reflect the needs of the Roma population and its internal and external diversity. This goal needs a united front of all the involved organisations and the support of many partners and stakeholders”, Redjepali Chupi, the co-director of Roma Education Fund.
Redjepali also brought forward the importance of participation of the public sector and its expertise, local and national institutions of government, local CSOs and activists, international organizations, monitoring agencies.
“In all these countries Roma families and communities have been enduring disproportionally higher health, socio-economic, and educational shortfalls which have resulted in low preschool attendance, low completion, and low transition rates from one educational level to another, high percentage of early school leaving, low enrolment of Roma to higher education and so on.
Having in mind that Roma population is quite diverse, therefore approaches, interventions, activities and results must be also diversified to reflect the reality. For example, we are continuously attempting at introducing gender transformative tools” – Redjepali Chupi.
Ema Kasapi, an education specialist from “Save the Children Albania” and a REF consultant, spoke about the impact of the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA), which is an instrument to measure motor skills, early literacy skills, empathy, etc. of small children. Numeracy, letters, social skills, hygiene and Math appeared to be among the abilities which Roma parents rank the highest in 2021 IDELA assessment.
Insights and best practices from the project implementation in different partnering countries were also presented, e.g., from North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo (UNSCR 1244/1999) and Albania. The consultants Elona Dhembo and Veronika Duci produced an analysis about the policies on enhancing quality education for Roma children and youth within the regional scope of Western Balkans and Turkey.
About the project
The project “EU Regional Action for Roma Education” has run between 2018 – 2021 in Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo (UNSCR 1244/1999), Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey thanks to implementing partners organizations. RARE was funded by the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) of the European Commission and the Roma Education Fund.
The objectives were to promote equal participation in quality education for Roma children and youth at all educational levels (pre-school, primary, secondary, university and vocational), and to improve the educational outcomes of Roma students, with a special focus on gender. The project has also attempted to enhance Roma youth employability and smooth transition between the completion of studies and entering the labor market. Not least, the interventions aimed at systemic durable change for Roma in the education sector by strengthening the capacities of relevant central and local institutions, through advocacy and research and through utilizing Roma role models as actors of change.
The target groups were Roma children of pre-primary age (0-6), Roma parents, Roma students enrolled in primary, secondary and tertiary education, national and local educational institutions and other public bodies.
*UNSCR 1244/1999
