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 Faculty 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 expanses 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.

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Our project is moving along nicely and its first phase for the assessment of financial literacy needs of Greek Roma is almost complete. What have we found out so far? A lot of very useful information about “who’s the boss” in a typical Greek Roma household (you guessed right, it is the mother. She is also the one managing the “family budget”), how Greek Roma earn money and how they like to spend it, whether they are interested to learn how to manage the finances of a small business or to live on a salary (they are!). The good thing is that we are generating some buzz about the FINALLY project. The Roma community inGreeceand educators with years of experience in Roma education (formal and informal) are getting excited about the course we are about to develop. Who could ask for anything more?

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The team of researchers from FEUN has finalized research activities focused on level of financial literacy of adult Roma and their needs regarding training on this issue. The research has been carried out from April till July including focus groups with relevant experts and interviews with Roma from Niš. The main research finding is that, although they cope with low and mostly irregular incomes, Roma have great survival strategies, but in some cases related to their tradition (e.g. family celebrations, especially weddings) they lean towards irrational spending. We have concluded that they need more education in general and especially on following topics related to financial literacy: strategic and operational planning, managing household finances, smart spending, saving, investment, start-ups and self-employment opportunities. We have also learned that they could benefit from more information on how to realize they rights based on poor socio-economic status.

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In the 1^st phase, 3 pilot interviews with Roma adults from villages were conducted. For the next stages of the project we started a collaboration with ACEC (Association for Culture, Education and Communication) to plan the next steps together. With the help of ACEC we have carried out till now 7 interviews with Roma inhabitants. The interviews were conducted according to established selection criteria: 3 interviews with adult women over 25, 3 with men over 25 and 1 with a young Roma aged 22. To reach representativeness of the Roma community, we contacted Roma assistants from eastern Slovakia, where the largest group of Roma population is located. Moreover, we involved experts and stakeholders to obtain information on financial literacy needs of Roma and priorities for financial education.

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In the context of the Needs Assessment survey conducted in Greece, the recently formed Focus Group met for the first time to discuss issues associated with the project’s design and its intended implementation in Greece. The Group consists of about 10 members representing the country’s Roma Community, educators and trainers who specialize in Roma education and organizations involved in promoting this Community’s general interests and its socioeconomic integration effort.
The Group confirmed the project’s relevance and importance of its anticipated impact. Other issues discussed related to the interpretation of financial literacy training needs assessment provisional results and their probable implications for the customized training course development about to start.
The Group also confirmed its intention to support future FINALLY project activities.

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In the period November 2012–March 2013 the two Greek partners, Techniki Ekpedeftiki KEK and UPRC, held several meetings to establish the requirements of their work on the project “FINALLY”. A relationship was established between the two project partners, with Roma networks and major representative organizations of the Roma community in Greece. According to the requirements of WP2 “Needs Assessment” interviews were to be conducted with Roma living in two different settings, urban and rural. The urban Roma community selected for the purpose are residents of the town of “Aghia Varvara” in Egaleo-Athens. The informal Roma settlement in “Nomismatokopio” Chalandri, Attica was selected as the rural community where interviews will also be conducted.

For the WP2 – Needs Assessment, Codici has involved institutions, organizations and Roma individuals, thus disseminating the aims and actions of Finally project. Codici has contacted 23 professionals working in various departments offering social assistance to Roma people in the Municipality of Bologna and in NGOs. These facilitated the contact with 5 Roma mediators working in the area. About 20 Roma individuals were directly contacted by the field researchers and 9 of them accepted to be interviewed: they are both male and female, Italian Sinti, Romanian and Balkan Roma, living in houses or in camps, and with different occupational statuses. The researchers had the occasion of visiting their houses and spend some time with them seeing how their living conditions are.

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In November 2012 a new project, called Financial Literacy for Roma, has started for Health and Social Development Foundation. The issue is very important for Bulgaria, because we have a very big Roma minority and unfortunately the Roma are having trouble with covering basic needs of their families. The unemployment is quite high, the educational level is low and families have low income. The instable and insecure incomes result in lack of ability for financial management of the family budget. That is why creating a good training course for financial management is an important task to support the development of Roma community in our country.

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Lifelong Learning programme Information Day for Serbia was organized by the National Tempus Office in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. The event took place on 5 December 2012, in Belgrade, Palace “Serbia”.

It was devoted to announcing the new call for project proposals within the European Union LLP programme, general information and priorities. The event was an occasion to learn about the recently selected projects, i.e. success stories.

The Grundtvig project Financial Literacy for the Roma (FINALLY) was chosen as one of five project examples to be presented at the info day in front of an audience of more than a hundred participants.

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Focus group within project Financial literacy for Roma – FINALLY (GRUNDTVIG multilateral project financed by EU through LifeLong Learning Programme) was organized on the Faculty of Economics University of Niš.
The aim of this activity was to collect information about the current state of financial literacy of adult Roma and to define priorities, strategies and content of the training for its improvement that will be organized during the project.
The participants in this focus group were professionals from different fields experienced in working with Roma minority on local and republic level: representatives of 5 NGOs, Republic union of recyclable items collectors, two sociologists – researchers of various aspects of life of Roma in Serbia, and 5 representatives of the Faculty – members of project team.
The focus group resulted in successful identification of strengths and weaknesses of personal and household financial management of Roma, opportunities and threats for improvement of those strategies, and subjects and good practice examples regarding education of adult Roma.

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