The situation of Roma girls is even more dramatic, as they receive even less support than Roma boys to continue their education and are more likely to find themselves without education, training, or employment (NEET) as young adults (16-24 years) [3]. The main obstacles faced by Roma girls include poverty, unpaid household work, conservative gender roles, limited financial resources for education, discrimination and aggression from teachers and classmates, as well as other structural factors.

In response to this situation, the partners within the PROMA project – Promoting the integration of Roma women – assessed the educational needs of Roma women and girls, but also the ones of professionals in formal and non-formal education, who promote their inclusion in the four European countries where the project is implemented: Romania, Spain, Greece and North Macedonia.

Following this analysis, an innovative methodology and a set of educational tools were developed to support the social inclusion of Roma women: an online capacity-building program and a guide for trainers working with Roma women, as well as other online resources for the empowerment of Roma women. The knowledge and skills provided by the PROMA methodology have been transferred to more than 60 professionals working in Roma communities and to more than 120 Roma women in the four implementing countries.

The pilot program to strengthen the capacities of professionals who provide formal and non-formal education services to Roma women had two components – training for professionals and training for Roma women in the community.

In Romania, 22 such professionals from non-governmental organizations acting locally and from local public authorities have benefited from training courses on how to create and implement effective educational programs for the integration of Roma women. The trainers from the Center for Not-for-profit Law and held the courses in a hybrid format, part of the training sessions taking place physically, in July, in Vizurești, Dâmbovița County, and in September, in Curcani, Călărași County, and the others online.

At the end of the program, the participants took an individual exam of the acquired knowledge and skills, and in October, some of them, with the support of the CLNR trainers, trained Roma women from their community.

The training program was based on the E-learning platform developed within the PROMA project, and the thematic sessions aimed at:

• self-knowledge and increasing self-efficiency,

• establishing priorities in life, personal goals, and objectives,

• defining and explaining the concepts of race and ethnicity,

• the history of the Roma minority in Romania,

• public policy approaches for the inclusion of Roma women,

• training techniques as well as establishing a relationship based on trust with the training participants,

• good practices in adult education programs.

The pilot program to strengthen the capacity of professionals who offer education services to Roma women is part of the activities of the PROMA project – Promoting the integration of Roma women implemented by the Center for Not-for-profit Law (Romania), SYMPLEXIS (Greece), Citizens Association for Support of Marginalized Groups – Roma Resource Center Skopje (Republic of North Macedonia), Magenta Consultoria Projects Sl (Spain) and BK Consult GbR (Germany), and co-financed by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union.

[1] European Union Agency Fundamental Rights. Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey. Roma – Selected findings. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2018. https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2016-eu-minorities-survey-roma-selected-findings_en.pdf,

[2] European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Transition from education to employment of young Roma in nine EU Member States, Publications Office, 2018, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2811/451821.

[3] European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Transition from education to employment of young Roma in nine EU Member States

 

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This newsletter has been elaborated within the project PROMA – Promoting the integration of Roma women, funded by Erasmus+, Agreement number 2020-1-RO01-KA204-080214. The content of the newsletter represents the views of the authors only and is their sole responsibility. The newsletter is sent quarterly to the organizations in the databases of the partners in this project. This newsletter was drafted and disseminated in accordance with the GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation- European Regulation 2016/679 on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. In case you do not want to receive this newsletter, please write to us at: office@clnr.ro