1. Lascar Catargiu
2. Mofleni
3. Popoveni
Introduction
The complexity of the SEED project is due to the fact that the target group is the Rroma children. The Rroma communities have always been subjects of controversy, conflicts, prejudices and exclusion. The aim and at the same time the challenge of the project is to raise the level of involvement, active participation and cooperation between Rroma and Romanian youngsters through non formal education.
A number of 10 volunteers from different European countries will be working basically in three schools from Craiova where the percentage of Roma children is high or even represents a majority. The three schools are: Scoala n° 26 in Mofleni; Scoala n° 19 in Catargiu; Scoala Generala from Popoveni.
The following chapters will present a description and an analysis of each one of these communities, structured on the following points:
• The status quo of these communities ( focused on youngsters )
• The main problems with an impact on Rroma youngsters
• The opportunities to implement an EVS project
Lascar Catargiu
I. Status quo of the community
Catargiu is a neighborhood located in the outskirts of Craiova, in the South part, near the biggest space for leisure in town, called ,,Parcul Tineretului” ( The Park of Youth” ). There are means of transportation from down town: bus n° 14.
The population of Rroma people is significant in the neighbourhood – a quarter of the total population. The neghborhood has the appearance of a village, with contrasting ,,landscapes” like poor, small houses near large, luxurious houses, and partially paved streets. Only a few streets in the neighbourhood have sewage so the living conditions are difficult.
The Rroma people earns their living by practicing crafts which are not so profitable, like: collecting unuseful objects from iron and selling them; collecting old clothes and selling them; repairing metal objects and others. A real tendency regarding the economical aspect is the migration of Rroma families and youngsters abroad, to work, mostly in domains like constructions and agriculture. Therefore there are notable economical differences between them: some of them living in poverty, misery, beneficiaries of social help and another part of them –those who work abroad- with a good financial situation, being able to build big houses and to buy expensive cars.
Most of the Rroma families in this neighborhood are still traditional ones. One of their most known and controversed custom is early marriages – the youngsters get married from early ages like 14, 15 years old or even earlier in some cases, and the marriages are arranged by parents. The Rroma families are characterized by solidarity and hierarchical organization: the man has the power of decision and particularly the old men.
The traditions of Rroma people, their way of living and their difficulties to adapt it to a modern society led to many prejudices and labeling from the Romanian people, like:
- the name of ,,gypsy” is often used as a pejorative one, associated to some negative features that the Rroma people are believed to have ( they are believed to be lazy, thieves, dishonest ); some of them feel offended when they are called ,,gypsys’’, and on the contrary some others feel offended when they are called ,,Roma” sustaining that ,,gypsy’’ is their traditional name )
- it is believed that most of Rroma people are criminals and especially thieves
Generally, the collaboration and the cohabitation of Roma and Romanian people in this neighborhood is good but it is evident to some extent, the mistrust regarding gypsys and the tendency to judge them on the one hand, and on the other hand it is also evident the resistance of Rroma people to changes coming from outside their culture.
In Lascar Catargiu is located only one school, namely School with classes I-VIII nr. 19, “Lascar Catargiu” for children aged between 7 and 14 years old. The school is located on street BARAGANULUI number 45, it has between 300 and 500 students and places for Rroma children.
II. The main problems with an impact on Rroma youngsters
The Rroma community in Lascar Catargiu –and not only- is confronted with a series of problems with an impact on youngsters:
Poverty
– for many of them the main source of living are the social aids and school allowances
- there are a lot of cases when the Rroma children are stimulated to go to school only because they receive a student allowance
- most of Rroma adults don’t have any professional qualification working in low- paid jobs such as salubrity or practicing ambulatory commerce
Migration
– a significant number of Rroma people migrate abroad for jobs better paid
- the adults either take their children with them abroad, interrupting their studies, either leave them at home to take care of younger brothers or old members of the family, which also leads to the situation of interrupting the studies
Tradition
- there is a significant number of cases when the rules of tradition supersede the need for education : by the age of 11 years old or 14 years old, the girls are already engaged and they have to interrupt school for getting married; the boys are allowed to continue their studies but there are a lot of cases when they interrupt their studies by the age of 16 years old
- the adults don’t perceive the education as a benefit and opportunity to develop but as a threat to their traditions
Education
Level of schooling; school drop
The school with classes I-VIII nr. 19, “Lascar Catargiu” has 25% Rroma children. Although the attendance rate in general is high – 90%- the school attendance rate among Rroma children is fluctuating. The main cause seems to be the migration. The parents enroll their children at the beginning of the school year and after a while they take their children, interrupting their studies, to leave abroad.
Therefore the Rroma children have serious gaps in their knowledge: many of them don’t learn to read and write until 10, 11 years old. The graduation rate is also smaller among Rroma children.
The teachers have tried to do an afterschool in 2008 to help the Rroma children to recover gaps but they didn’t succeed because of lack of finances to sustain this programme.
The school is facing also situations of school drops more frequently among Roma children than Romanian ones. School drops usually happen for several reasons: parent’s lack of interest for education; early marriages; poor material situation.
The school is collaborating with representants of Rroma people, councillor from the County Council and other representants from the local public administration to prevent school drops. They organise symposiums and round tables where they discuss these issues and where preventive measures are proposed.
Segregation
The school is facing the situation in which the parents of Rroma children don’t respect the official enrollment period. They enroll their children later; therefore classes with a majority of Rroma children appear. It can not be said that the segregation is imposed. The teachers are making efforts to mix the classes during the school year by gathering Romanian children and Rroma children with a similar level of knowledge.
III. The opportunities to implement an EVS project
It is evident the need to improve the level of education of Rroma children and to increase the level of cooperation between Roma and Romanian children.
An EVS project can be considered an instrument that can respond to these needs.The SEED EVS project offers an option to the classic education and curricula using non-formal education, youngsters working with youngsters, a rich cultural environment and flexibility to adapt activities to needs and possibilities.
The opportunity to implement an EVS project in a community like Lascar Catargiu and particularly in the school number 19 can be described in terms of:
Human resources:
- the director of the school , Mr. Predus Daniel, together with a teacher for primary school, Ms Ecaterina Ilie and one of the English teachers, engaged themselves in supporting the project during it’s implementation
- the support offered by the teachers consists in: helping the volunteers to integrate in the school; talking to parents and children and explaining them the purpose of the project in order to intermediate the contact between them and the volunteers and win more easy their confidence; helping the volunteers to organise the groups of children and activities
Infrastructure/ Material resources:
- the school has a sports room; a festivity room and one laboratory of informatics with internet connection
- there is a sports field in the school yard
- the courses schedule is from 8 a.m.to 12 p.m.- the primary school and from 12 p.m. to 19 p.m.- the gymnasium but there are available daily, three unoccupied classrooms that can be used for extracurricular activities
- only a small part from the budget allocated for school needs is used for extracurricular activities because the budget is small
- the school managed on several occasions to obtain sponsorships from companies for activities with children ( festivities, contests ) and for some necessary equipment
Extracurricular activities/ Partnerships:
- there is a group of dances formed by a teacher from the school in 2008; the group is mixed- Rroma and Romanian children- and has participated in contests of ethnic dances
- the teachers and the children celebrated in 2009 The Day of Rroma people
- there is a football team, formed 4 years ago and trained by the sports teacher; the team has a mixed group of children and participates in contests, championships between schools
- the school has a sports association called JIEN, that supports the football team and the dances group
- the school has several partnerships with other schools from the town and from outside the town; it is noteworthy the partnerships with school number 3 Rasnov-Brasov and school number 4 from Sibiu, ( Brasov and Sibiu are two big cities of Romania ), based on exchanges between teachers and children
- partnership and good collaboration on educational projects with the organisation Romani C.R.I.S.S.- an organisation that fights for Rroma people’s rights and integration
- partnership with the organisation ,,Terre des hommes”, an organisation working mainly in the human rights field; through this partnership the teachers participate at courses of improving their teaching skills using animation
Opennes/Expectations:
- the teachers don’t have experience with European programmes because they couldn’t acces any of them; so implementing an EVS project would be a good occasion to learn more about these programmes
- the teachers from the school, in general, are interested in new educational programmes
- the teachers are open to a possible collaboration with other schools where the number of Rroma children is significant
- as an expectation of the teachers: they would like from volunteers to offer to the children examples of new teaching and learning methods, more modern, active and practical ones that will attract more the children in schools
-the teachers believe that they, together with the volunteers through the children openness and interest in extracurricular activitites, will obtain the parent’s openness too
The level of openness, the desires and the needs of children have been tested through questionnaires. The research team spread the questionnaires to children with ages of 10 to 12 years old and 13 to 15 years old. The respondents were Rroma and Romanian children.
The results were the following:
• for children with ages from 10 to 12 years old
- for the question: ,,What do you like to do in your free time?’ most of answers indicated activities like playing games and preference for outdoor activities ( walk in tha park with family and friends )
- for the question: ,,Where do you meet your friends?” most of them said that they have as a meeting place the park ( the park is near the neighbourhood )
- for the question:,,What do you usually do when you meet your friends?” the majority answered that they play games ( especially sports ) and discuss
- for the question:,, Would you like to take part in recreational activities after classes?”, the answers were 100% affirmative for this category of ages
- for the question:,,Do you have a computer with internet connection at home?”, half of the respondents of this age answered ,,no”
- the children had to choose from a list of themes and activities that they would like to develop after classes. The most answers indicated preferences for: sports ( football ); art ( dances, theatre, music ); health issues (hygiene, prevention of certain diseases ) and ecology
• for children with ages from 13 to 15 years old
- for the question:,, ,,What do you like to do in your free time?” the majority of answers indicated activities like practicing sports ( volleyball, football, tennis ) and spending time on computer
- for the question: ,,Where do you meet your friends?” most of answers indicated as the most common meeting places the streets where the children live and the school when they come to classes
- for the question:,,What do you usually do when you meet your friends?” the majority answered that they like to play games ( mainly sports ) and to discuss with their friends
- for the question:,, Would you like to take part in recreational activities after classes?” the majority of answers were affirmative although a significant number of children from this age answered negative
- for the question:,,Do you have a computer with internet connection at home?” the answers indicated that a high number of children from this category of ages have a computer with internet connection
- the children had to choose from a list of themes and activities that they would like to develop after classes. The most answers indicated preferences for: sports ( football, volleyball ); artistic activities ( dances; theatre, music ); health issues (hygiene, prevention of certain diseases ) and culture ( learning foreign languages; learning about cultures and tradition of other countries).
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Mofleni
Introduction
School n°26
The oldest documents of the school are talking about the school in Mofleni, dating from around 1894 - from the first day, the school keeps the transcript with those students who were enrolled in the classes I-II, the school year 1894-1895.
Currently the school functions with classes I - VIII, a single number, and school population is heterogeneous, predominantly Roma students.
School with classes I-VIII n°26 is located in a peripheral area. The neighbourhood has a heterogeneous population (Romanians and Roma, the latter represented by the year 1990, the majority population) and socio-cultural as a medium. The role of the school is very important and at the same time difficult, as the family environment is not educational, being influenced by material situation.
I. Status quo of the community
Mofleni is a a peripheral neighbourhood located in the south-west of Craiova City, situated close to the ,,Parcul Tineretului” ( The Park of Youth” ), at a distance of maximum 5 km away from the zone 0 of the city.
There are means of transportation from down town: bus n°14 and bus n°29.
Mofleni has 1.745 inhabitants of which 800 persons are Roma.
Mofleni neighbourhood has the appearance of a village, with contrasting ,landscapes” like poor, small houses near large, luxurious houses, and partially paved streets.
The main street has asphalt, but the side streets are not paved. Also, on the side streets, (like Street Abatorului), people are very poor, living in misery. There are also cases when 12 people live all together, in one small room.
There is no network of running water, and people are using water from wells dug in the ground.
Roma population in Mofleni includes only traditional Roma. They are mostly, brick makers, but they have abandoned the traditional job. Only few still practice traditional trades.
There are few Roma with stable jobs.
In Mofleni neighborhood Roma population earn their living from occasional work, work in the market (selling second-hand clothes), collecting unuseful objects from iron or plastic and selling them. Many of them are beneficiaries of welfare and to this is added children's allowance.
Lately, the financial situation of community has improved due to migration of young people working abroad.
Most of the Rroma families in Mofleni neighbourhood are still traditional ones.
The biggest problems facing Roma youngsters are discrimination, lack of education and early marriage.
The traditions of Rroma people, their way of living and their difficulties to adapt it to a modern society led to many prejudices and labeling from the Romanian people, like:
- all Roma people are criminals and thieves
- Roma people are responsible for the bad image of Romania
Marriages are usually between the ages of 13 - 17 years.
Even if there are some Roma people who use to “sell” their daughters, Roma people from Mofleni practice marriage without asking for money.
Civil marriage is made in years if absolutely necessary for some family interests, the youngsters can live together from the day of the traditional wedding.
Roma people have their own traditions for marriage and their own Roma trial, where they solve everything, except for murder.
Generally, the collaboration and the cohabitation of Roma and Romanian people in this neighborhood are good but it is evident to some extent, the mistrust regarding gypsies and the tendency to judge them. The neigborhood is actually split into two pieces: in the first half (close to The Park of Youth) Roma people live, and in the other half (close to the bridge), the Romanians live.
Roma people do not really collaborate with the school, seen as an institution that can destroy their tradition.
Educational process faces the following issues: early marriage, migration abroad, labor exploitation of children, some parents do not allow children to go to school, high absenteeism, low level of living.
As a result of the lack of referential patterns in the educational system, most young people in the neighborhood migrate, thus reaching the level of early school drop-out.
In Mofleni is located a general school, namely School with Classes I-VIII n°26, and Orthodox Theological Seminary, with classes IX-XII, but only in School n°26 Roma children are present in large numbers.
School with Classes I-VIII n°26 has a long tradition in this neighborhood, dating from around 1894.
The school has two buildings (one for classes I-IV and one for classes V-VIII), has a lab and internet access.
In the school there are mostly Roma children; there are only two non-roma children.
The teachers are mostly non-roma. There are two Roma teachers, and one of them is teaching Romani language (Roma language).
The collaboration between Roma and Romanian people is very good in this school.
II. The main problems with an impact on Rroma youngsters
Roma youngsters constitute the most marginalized group in Romania. Raised under very difficult socioeconomic conditions and the striking pressure of the society, it is very hard for them to integrate into the social and cultural life of the country. Their involvement in professional courses, cultural activities and various training seminars would influence the improvement of their situation.
The low educational level is the most serious problem, impeding the integration of this community towards the majority society.
Many Roma children are illiterate. Some of the factors influencing this situation are the poverty in their families and sometimes the wrong mentality of their parents.
If Roma children have no possibility to complete a certain educational level, it means that their future is in danger. When adults, the children with no education are offered to do ordinary jobs, such as cleaning streets at night or during the day, collecting garbage or cans and finally, using their oldest profession: begging.
In Mofleni neighborhood, the role of the school is very important and at the same time difficult, as the family environment is not educational, being influenced by material situation.
In School n°26 there are few children going to school every day. They are not used to timetables, not to say extracurricular activities. The children often go to school two or three hours a day, and then they go home and start working in their houses.
Also, they don´t have community life or group space. Usually children live in their own families without deep contact between them. They don´t spend time together like a group or a community apart for the traditional events like weddings or funerals.
Even if Roma people are said to have no education, the percentage of children that promote school in Mofleni is high, 98%-99%.
In School n°26, there are only two non-roma children, but they get along very well with Roma ones.
In kindergarten, the situation is different. Roma and Romanians are present in equal percentage.
These different situations occur, because the non-roma parents agree with sending their children in kindergarten along with roma children, only because they are afraid of letting them to go alone in another kindergarten from another neighborhood (a kindergarten without Roma children), because of the long distance and the age of their kids (5-6 years old). But when the children grow, the situation changes, and they go to schools in other neighbourhoods.
The school in Mofleni neighborhood is not sufficiently supported by the Local Council or the City Hall in terms of educational initiatives. The school doesn’t have a sports field, only a small room for physical education, and during the summer when the temperatures are very high, the atmosphere is hardly bearable.
General school from Mofleni has an active group of teachers ready to involve in a project, ready to support any activity, but the problem is that they are not speaking English. There is only one English teacher in the school.
Another big problem of the school and indirectly of the Roma children is that there is no budget for extracurricular activities and there are no sponsors. Without money, non formal education has no chance in changing the future of these youngsters.
Not only that in Mofleni and in Roma communities the level of education is very low, but they also don’t receive any kind of support in implementing projects for promoting non-formal education or for raising the awareness about the importance of the education in general. Also the school doesn’t have a sports field, or a celebration hall. All these aspects affect Roma children, their future, and the process of reducing discrimination against Roma population.
III. The opportunities to implement an EVS project
Non-discrimination does not apply always in real life, especially when it comes to Roma population. An explicit example is Mofleni a segregated neighborhood of Craiova where children are not motivated to go to school, they don’t have a group of friends, or an idea about the concept of after school classes.
In School n°26, there were some extracurricular activities, like a dancing team, and all kind of social, and ecological games. Now the kids here are experiencing an EVS project, with two Spanish girls, two times a week. So, the school has some experience in relation with European projects, like Learning by Doing implemented by EPYD and other projects with NGOs like Vasiliada and Terdezom.
Also this school from Mofleni has partnerships with ISJ, TRUST, EPYD, Vasiliada Associasion, Terdezom Association, Amaro Sumo, Speranta Baniei Association, ROMANI C.R.I.S.S. and others.
Mofleni neighborhood is a mixed one – young, medium and older.
Regarding the number of children aged 0-7 years the situation is the following:
- between 3 and 5 years - 32 children
- aged 5 - 7 - 25 children
- between 0 - 3 years - 35 children
These youngsters from Mofleni are disadvantaged, with low opportunities. For them, the unemployment, social and economic exclusion, depression, substance abuse and crime are just some characteristics of their future.
Disadvantage is not inevitable. While a disadvantaged young person has grown up with a lack of opportunities and resource, this doesn't have to be the story of their adult lives. Through comprehensive programs and scholarships, organisations like EPYD can help provide disadvantaged young people with educational support, employment skills and confidence to negotiate this vital stage of life.
The key of changing this situation is non-formal education.
Non-formal education can enhance their overall knowledge, can help them integrate what they have learn in school to what they know about the environment.
The European Union supports non-formal education opportunities for young people through transnational voluntary service which directly and actively involves young people in activities designed to meet the needs of society in a wide range of fields.
In Mofleni, there are a lot of problems to work on, and the school provides us with the support and the place to do it.
There are teachers in Mofleni who really want to involve in every project that can help children. Romanescu Alexandra is a young English teacher who offered, along with Vladut Mirela, a sports teacher, to support the volunteers and the projects.
Roma population is well known for migrating in countries like Italy, Spain or Germany. So, even if they don’t speak English, they can speak Spanish, Italian or German. There are two girls in the community who speak Spanish fluently, and there are a lot of youngsters who speak very good Italian.
In this S.E.E.D. project, TRUST organization will be supporting all the activities.
TRUST “Tineri Romi pentru Unitate şi Transparenta” is an association, dealing with monitoring human rights violation and belongs to ROMANI C.R.I.S.S.’s network. Particularly, through a strategic plan against discrimination, in the last four years they have been working in the field of school segregation in Craiova in order to ensure same quality and same opportunities of education to Rroma children.
They will provide cultural trainings and information of volunteers in what regards the Rroma culture, their traditions and habits, making them better prepared in approaching with success the target group.
The school will be the place for developing each activity.
In School n°26 from Mofleni, there are small classes, a lab with internet access, and a small room for physical education. They are now building a celebration hall, and looking forward to seeing the moment when they will start building the sports field.
There are teachers ready to help, and most important, roma children who need help in these activities.
Also, teachers agreed with having the volunteers assisting the classes, and observing how the process of formal education works in Romania.
The school in Mofleni and the community itself is used to foreigners. The school had developed some projects with Romanians like social education, echological games, human rights, and only one EVS project, with two Spanish girls.
Sara and Nuria came in Romania for a six months project named “Learning by doing” implemented by EPYD Organization. They are working in Mofleni with children from 7 to 14 years old, twice a week from 3 to 5. They have games, dancing, and workshops. Also, Sara now is teaching 3 boys how to read and write, because these kids, even if they are 12 years old, they have never went to school. They are making progress but she is concerned about this situation – there are children that never go to school in Roma communities. She hopes that she will encourage children to go to school, and also that her project would be continued.
Because they were the first volunteers working in Mofleni, they had some difficulties at the beginning, and they also have some now too.
They would never expect the children to be waiting for them in the school at 3 o’clock.
Before 3 PM, they go door by door in the community, announcing and also presenting their project to the Roma children and parents too.
For them this was also good because now they can understand better the community, see where and how every child lives and how is the project seen by the parents.
These girls have managed to attract children with some “free time activities”, like painting, dancing, and also learning about European Countries and culture.
When working in the Rroma community in Craiova, Mofleni you will know the problems affecting Rroma daily life, like access to housing, employment and health care and this experience will make them face, on the local level, the violation of human rights.
The Roma children know almost nothing about how a normal child should act, learn or play. That is why they are happy with small actions, routine actions for us, new and exciting for them.
Having Roma children, and also the Roma community of Mofleni involved, maybe in the future we wouldn’t be talking about school drop-out.
These non-formal activities will help children realise the importance of the school and also the importance of sport, fair-play and a healthy life.
In order to find out the needs and wishes of the Roma children from Mofleni neighborhood we applied a survey, from witch it results that children with ages between 11 and 14 years old, like to practice sports and hang out with friends into their spare time. There are also kids who like to listen to music and also reading.
The children like to spend their free time into the park, or at the stadium. The park is really near Mofleni and it is a new park, being an attraction for all children and youngsters from Craiova.
The favourite activities of the Roma children from Mofleni are sports and listening to music. These children are active, and music is a strong part of their culture and tradition.
Being asked if they would like to participate together with other youngsters after classes to some extracurricular activities, all the children responded affirmatively. They are very interested in knowing new people and learning new things.
Roma children from Mofleni neighborhood are interested in computers and internet, but due to financial situation, less then half of the families have a computer connected to the internet.
All the children preferred as extracurricular activities sports, artistic activities like dancing, painting, theatre, and also ecology. They had already developed an ecology project, and this theme sound interesting to them.
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Popoveni
I. Status quo of the community
This district, located in the South of Craiova, is populated with a total of 1,000 people of which about 70% are Rroma etnichs.
There are means of transportation from down town: bus No 24, 1.
Roma community in this area is located in the area known as "Canal", following the canal that passes right through the middle of its community over a distance of about 2 km.The neighbourhood has the appearance of a village, with poor, small houses near partially paved streets.
The main street has asphalt, but the side streets are not paved. There are also cases when 12 people live all together, in one small room. There is no network of running water, and people are using water from wells dug in the ground.
Rroma population in Popoveni includes only traditional Rroma. They are mostly, brick makers, but they have abandoned the traditional job. Only few still practice traditional trades.There are few Roma with stable jobs.
In Popoveni, Rroma population earn their living from occasional work, work in the market (selling second-hand clothes), collecting unuseful objects from iron or plastic and selling them. Many of them are social aid beneficiaries adding to this children's allowance.Lately, the financial situation of community has improved due to migration of young people working abroad.
Most of the Rroma families in Popoveni are still traditional. The biggest problems facing Roma youngsters are discrimination, lack of education and early marriage. The traditions of Rroma, their way of living and their difficulties to adapt to a modern society led to many prejudices and labeling from the Romanian people, like:
- all Rroma people are criminals and thieves
- Rroma people are responsable for the bad image of Romania
Marriages usually take place between 12 - 17 years, engagements are made 7-8 years earlier. Even if there are some Rroma people who use to “sell” their daughters, Rroma people from Popoveni practice marriage without asking for money.Civil marriage is made in the years after if absolutely necessary for some family interests, but the youngsters can live together from the day of the traditional wedding.
Rroma people have their own traditions for marriage and their own Rroma trial, where they solve everything, except for murder.
Generally, the collaboration and the cohabitation of Rroma and Romanian people in this neighborhood is good but it is evident to some extent, the mistrust regarding gypsys and the tendency to judge them.
Rroma people do not really collaborate with the school, seen as an institution that can destroy their tradition.Educational process faces the following issues: early marriage, migration abroad, labor exploitation of children, some parents do not allow children to go to school, high absenteeism, low level of living. As a result of the lack of referential patterns in the educational system, most young people in the neighborhood migrate, thus reaching the level of early school drop-out.
School Nr. 36 was opened in 1992 and in terms of infrastructure is new. In terms of teachers, all staff are qualified. Since 2000 to this school was subordinated structure Popoveni-School Nr. 27.School classes I-IV Popoveni is located out of the city of Craiova and looks like a house with 3 bedrooms. The building is made out of 4 rooms: lounge, the office and 2 classrooms. The toilet is located outside and still running. This building shelters 75 students, all Rroma. Distance between the two structures is about 1, 5 km.
II. The main problems with an impact on Rroma youngsters
The Rroma community in Popoveni is confronted with a series of problems with an impact on youngsters:
Poverty – for many of them the main source of living are the social aids and allowances
- there are a lot of cases when the Rroma children are stimulated to go school only because they receive a student allowance
- most of Rroma adults don’t have any professional qualification working in low paid jobs such as salubrity or practicing ambulatory commerce
Migration – a significant number of Rroma people migrate abroad for better paid jobs
- the adults either take their children with them abroad, interrupting their studies, either leave them at home to take care of younger brothers or old members of the family, which also leads to the situation of interrupting the studies
Tradition - there is a significant number of cases when the rules of tradition supersede the need for education : by the age of 11 years old or 14 years old, the girls are already engaged and they have to interrupt school for getting married; the boys are allowed to continue their studies but there are a lot of cases when they interrupt their studies by the age of 16 years old
- the adults don’t perceive the education as a benefit and opportunity to develop but as a threat to their traditions
Education
Level of schooling; school drop
The school with classes I-IV nr. 27, “Popoveni” has 100% Rroma children. Although the official attendance rate in general is high – 90%- the real school attendance rate among Rroma children is lower and fluctuating. The main cause seems to be the migration. The parents enrol their children at the beginning of the school year and after a while they take their children, interrupting their studies, to leave abroad. Therefore the Rroma children have serious gaps in their knowledge: many of them don’t learn to read and write until 9, 10 years old.
Even though the graduation average is above 90%, Rroma children come out of the educational system with real blanks in where knowledge and competences are concerned. School board has alerted already the city council and the city hall, but no concrete answer was received, nor any help.
Segregation
School 27 is a subordinated structure of School 36, so segregation is given by location. Rroma children in Popoveni go to primary school here and then make up mix classes with Romanian pupils.
Teachers have created interaction between the children organising sports events, dancing groups and scenes play with the children.
III. The opportunities to implement an EVS project
It is evident the need to improve the level of education of Rroma children and to increase the level of cooperation between Roma and Romanian children.
The opportunity to implement an EVS project in a community like Lascar Popoveni and particularly in School 27 can be described in terms of:
Human resources:
- the director of the school , Mr. Marica Ion, together with the deputy director Mrs. Carmen Dragomir, the coordinating teacher for primary school Popoveni, Mr Georgică Constantin and one of the English teachers, Mrs. Dumitru Adelina engaged themselves in supporting the project during it’s implementation
- the support offered by the teachers consists in: helping the volunteers to integrate in the school; talking to parents and children and explaining them the purpose of the project in order to intermediate the contact between them and the volunteers and win more easy their confidence; helping the volunteers to organise the groups of children and activities.
Infrastructure/ Material resources:
- there is a sports field in the school yard
- the courses schedule is from 8 to 11:30 - 1st and 2nd grade and from 11:30 to 15 – 3rd and 4th grade, but there are available daily, 2 unoccupied classrooms in the kindergarten that can be used for extracurricular activities after 12 o’clock when small children go home.
- only a small part from the budget allocated for school needs is used for extracurricular activities because the budget is small
- the school managed on several occasions to obtain sponsorships from companies for activities with children ( festivities, contests ) and for some necessary equipment, but the principle said is becoming more and more difficult to get funds.
Extracurricular activities/ Partnerships:
- there is a group of dances formed by a teacher from the school in 2008; the group has participated in contests of ethnic dances
- the school has several partnerships with other schools from the town and from outside the town; it is noteworthy the partnership with Organizatia Tinerilor cu Initiativa din Arad who is implementing the project ECO GROUPS financed by the Youth in Action Program
Opennes/Expectations:
- the teachers have experience with only one European programme(the above mentioned partnership ); so implementing an EVS project would be a good occasion to learn more about these programmes
- the teachers from the school, in general, are interested in new educational programmes
- the teachers are open to a possible collaboration with other schools where the number of Rroma children is significant
- as an expectation of the teachers: they would like from volunteers to offer to the children examples of new teaching and learning methods, more modern, active and practical ones that will attract more the children in schools
- the children are open to extracurricular activities
-the teachers believe that they, together with the volunteers through the children openness and interest in extracurricular activitites, will obtain the parent’s openness too.
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