Exchanging good European practices and becoming a part of the wide European network

RIC Novo mesto took part in a high-level, trans-national policy seminar as part of the EU-funded (LLP, Roma Policy) project ‘Literacy Cubed – Focus on Roma Families (LIT3)’ (www.lit3-project.eu) which was held in London on the 19th and 20th February 2015 at the University College London – Institute of Education. The participants were policy makers from Europe and from the national project’ partners as well as representatives from the other successful LLP projects. The purpose of the seminar was to consider and build on the messages from the first draft of the Policy Brief (following successful implementation of family literacy programmes with Roma families in Romania, Montenegro and Slovakia), informing its development, to ensure that it is aligned with other national and international policy developments and is of relevance to a broad range of policy areas.

Gabi Ogulin Počrvina, representative from RIC Novo mesto, presented good practices in working with Roma, focused on two current LLP projects: project Finally (to raise the financial literacy of Roma Adults) and project eRR (E-Roma Resource – implementation of online educational and informational platform). As RIC is an adult education center our major goal is to enable Roma acquiring basic literacy knowledge and skills. Those opportunity was well for improving  our work, exchanging good European practices and becoming a part of the wide European network in the field of Roma education.

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In the period from 26 to 28 January in Downtown hotel, Sofia, HESED hosted a meeting of the partners under “Finally- Financial Literacy for the Roma”, co-funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union. Representatives from five partners organizations from Slovenia, Slovakia, Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria participated in the meeting. The training methodology for financial literacy of Roma developed by leading specialists in the field of finances from the Faculty of Economics of Nis (Serbia) was discussed and finalized. The methodology is based on a needs assessment research performed in each one of the countries included in the project (including Italy) The main finding of the needs assessment shows that even if most of Roma have to deal with irregular income they have developed successful coping strategies, but in some particular cases, related with their traditional lifestyle and values (such as family festive occasions particularly weddings) they tend to have irrational expenses. The training aims to develop skills in management of family budget, controlled spending, saving, opportunities for development of small business and entrepreneurship.

In the frame of the meeting the partners discussed and scheduled the upcoming piloting of the training activities in real training situation. The pilot actions are about to start at April 2015.

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The Faculty of Economics Niš, as the part of the regular activities on promotion of its educational services, every year in early May organizes an open-doors day for perspective students. This is the opportunity for all interested to get known with the Faculty’s activities. This time the Faculty also hosted the Secondary schools representatives to whom they proposed further cooperation inside the FINALLY framework.

They delightedly accepted to take part in FINALLY training for trainers activity, that is to be launched early in 2015. According to national regulation, secondary school teachers need to undergone continuous education in their field of expertise in order to keep their knowledge up to date. With this mutually beneficial cooperation, Faculty of Economics will strengthen links with key stakeholders, and consequently strengthen its role as a leading education institution in the field of economics and business management in Serbia. By providing specific tailor-made vocational training the Faculty make the teachers able to gain new experience and take a first step in a completely new area of education of adults and people with special needs. This also sets the foundations for sustainability of FINALLY’s results.

Moreover, the Faculty continues the good practice of enrolling the Roma population on the first year of Bachelor study through the special form of privilege. Namely, two percent of all new-entrants come from the affirmative list designated to national minorities and disable persons. So far the majority of those were Roma people.

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A major part of our research work in preparation for the FINALLY course and training tools development was conducted in the Roma community of Aghia Varvara, a model municipality in the western part of Athens that has successfully assimilated many diverse groups of people including Roma. Far from fitting the profile of low education, unemployment and social exclusion,the Roma residents of Aghia Varvara have achieved middle class status in the time span of less than three quarters of a century. The education situation has also been steadily improving, especially in the last two decades with many young Roma graduating from high school and continuing their studies at University.  Already in the nineties, 13,34% of Roma men had graduated from nine year formal compulsory education system, unfortunately the corresponding percentages of women were far lower.

The welcome, that we received from young students, teachers, entrepreneurs, Community leaders and Roma Mediators, graduates of the European Training Program for Roma Mediators (ROMED), made us feel that the FINALLY project has the potential to have a long lasting effect in this and other Roma communities across the country.

On 10^th of October 2014 a House for creative and educational activities was opened on the territory of the Health and Social Centre in the Fakulteta neighborhood in Sofia. The project “Dreams Faculty” was realized by Transformers Association, Compote Collective and the Health and Social Development Foundation.

The idea for the project was born two years ago out of the comic books of 9 children from the neighborhood, who described what they dream about.

Many guests attending the opening, including the Mayor of Sofia, Yordanka Fandakova.

Children from the kindergarten of the Health and Social Centre and the “L. Pipkov” Musical School presented musical performances.

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From the 12^th until 15^th of May the FINALLY partner’s project meeting was held in Greece. The main focus of the meeting was discussion about the progress of the project, familiarization with training course and proposal of the methodology for pilot implementation of training. In the initiative step there have been three modules designed for training. On the basis of the discussions with partners and needs assessment in the target countries, the partnership also plans to add the 4^th module. The three basic modules of the FINALLY training are „Household Budgeting“, „Saving for the future“, and „Sensible borrowing“. An important part of training ads will be topics which could influence on employment and education of the Roma population as an important prerequisite for the better participation in the labor market and increase of family income. With use of the innovative tools in the training modules the project will strive to increase the level of financial literacy of the Roma population and improve their living conditions.

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17-18 june 2014, Podgorica, Montenegro

On behalf of the Montenegrin Government, a conference entitled Economic Empowerment of Roma was held in Podgorica, Montenegro by he current Presidency country of the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015 Initiative between June 17-18, 2014.

Marjeta Gašperšič, director of RIC Novo mesto that runs the Grundtvig Multilateral project FINALLY, presented the project Financial Literacy for the Roma and participated in fruitful discussions. The presentations are uploaded on the website of the Decade of Roma Inclusion at the following link: http://romadecade.org/egy-cikk.php?hir_id=9761

The Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005–2015 is an unprecedented political commitment by European governments to eliminate discrimination against Roma and close the unacceptable gaps between Roma and the rest of society. It is an international initiative that brings together governments, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, as well as Romani civil society. The Decade is governed through a rotating annual presidency, currently being held by Montenegro.

One of the priorities of the Montenegrin Presidency is to tackle the issues of poverty of Roma through economic empowerment. This event was envisaged as a catalyst of collecting ideas for government support to economic empowerment of Roma through presenting and discussing best practices of already implemented projects.

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HESED`s team finished the fieldwork concerning the needs assessment. One of the most interesting findings is the strong stereotypes and prejudices towards the bank system and the financial institutions. Strategies in finding money traditional for the community were described by the participants and gender differences were identified: the men tend to borrow money from usurers the women from relatives and friends. Inter generation differences were also identified – the younger Roma are more open and have more positive attitude to the official financial system and the financial services. The need to develop better understanding and knowledge about the financial services such as bank deposits, investment, savings, card payments, interest free installment payments etc., was identified as well as the need for long term planning and achieving   financial goals.

Within the project Finally, a team of researchers from HESED, conducted a field research aimed at discovering personal finance management habits and consumption patterns of Roma adults in Faculteta neighborhood in Sofia. Main aspects emerged from the research accentuate to the difficulties of the Roma people to find job, because of their low education, the inability to plan their expenses because of the unpredictability of their income, the need to find money cover the every-day needs of the family as well as on the strategies used to survive during the month or to find money in case of emergency. There is no motivation to start working because of the low salaries of the employed, whose income is very close to the income of the unemployed Roma living in the neighborhood, who are collecting materials for recycling from the garbage. The instable and unpredictable income is the reason for the lack of capability for effective management of the family budget.

For the past few months and in preparation for the production of the FINALLY course and toolbox the project team members in Greece have been immersed in Roma culture. What an amazing experience this has been! We discovered Roma folklore coming down entire generations and we followed the caravans of nomads in their strenuous path across Europe.

Then, we switched gears to the Roma culture of today: the passion for life, the entrepreneurial spirit, the family life, the shifting of attitudes in education, the cultural achievements, the colors so many and so bright and tried to come up with tools that can appeal to the FINALLY course audience.

We also hope that its three modules “Household budgeting”, “Shopping Practices” and “Save for the Future” will be in line with the partners’ expectations for the course. See you all in Athens!