ADULT SCHOOLS FOR INCLUSION IN THE DIVERSITY OF ROMA WOMEN Erasmus Project

Project Title

ADULT SCHOOLS FOR INCLUSION IN THE DIVERSITY OF ROMA WOMEN

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Gender equality / equal opportunities; Inclusion – equity; Romas and/or other minorities

Project Summary

Fighting against the social exclusion of the roma community is reclaiming the role of the roma community as a historical subject, capable of fully exercising their human rights of nutrition, health, housing, and quality education, as well as their participation in the processes that define their ways of life and coexistence that limit their personal and social development. In this sense, formal education is a key tool to achieve the social inclusion of the roma people, and especially of their women, since it contributes decisively to developing basic skills that avoid marginalization, promoting their socialization and providing essential knowledge to transform their social environment according to their needs.

Promoting the social inclusion of the roma community involves ensuring that adult roma women are re-integrated into the educational system, enhance their options to access better jobs, create bonds with society in general, and become a political subject that aspires to change the system, ending racism and inequalities.

This was the ultimate goal of the project “ADULT SCHOOLS FOR INCLUSION IN THE DIVERSITY OF ROMA WOMEN”, which began in September 2018 and which, due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, ended in August 2021. Looking back, after 3 long years of work and a wide variety of problems, we can say that we have made significant progress on this path.

Since 2018, a network of 6 entities from Spain, France, Portugal, and Romania (along with other roma women’s entities from countries like Germany, Hungary, or Bulgaria that also joined) has created an innovative virtual space to learn about the roma women: “SKOLA ROMANI: SCHOOLS OF INCLUSION” (https://skolaromani.org/), a virtual site where roma women are able to empower themselves, assume the social and political importance they have, and develop skills that allow their personal, social, and educational inclusion.

Thanks to the project “ADULT SCHOOLS FOR INCLUSION IN THE DIVERSITY OF ROMA WOMEN”, an ambitious Intellectual Output (the TRAINING COURSE FOR ROMA WOMEN TO ACCESS ADULT EDUCATION) was successfully developed, constituting one of the main materials of SKOLA ROMANI, and consisting of:

– A full DIDACTIC PROGRAM with more than 230 pages of contents, which will allow teachers in lifelong learning centers or social entities related to adult education to offer a course adapted directly to roma women with full capabilities for success in academic results, and consistent with the official adult education curricula of the participating countries.

– A specific TRAINING COURSE so that roma adults, especially women, develop the necessary skills for their re-incorporation to regulated education, while at the same time allowing them to develop their empowerment, self-confidence, and the strength to overcome their imposed social, cultural, and economic barriers. This course is comprised of the 7 DUs that form the Didactic Program, but it can be directly and digitally accessed by the users themselves.

Along with these two materials, a METHODOLOGICAL GUIDE FOR THE WORK WITH ADULT ROMA WOMEN has been also developed, among many others, establishing training mechanisms and strategies based on formal and non-formal work with roma adults, and various other free educational materials which not only include the educational contents necessary for the re-incorporation of the user to their educational itinerary, but will also include a series of non-formal contents that will allow the development of other competences among the beneficiaries, aimed at their full social inclusion and empowerment.

In carrying out this project, we have faced multiple obstacles, among which the emergence of the pandemic stands out strikingly, which made it very difficult for the partner entities (not-so-large entities with limited operational capabilities) to hold the Transnational Meetings, the pilot tests of the materials (educational centers were closed and roma women were confined…), and the dissemination stage, as it was not possible to carry out on-site activities. However, we found solutions to everything by finding ways to hold the Transnational Meetings (3 in-person and 1 online), providing the results directly to the beneficiaries so they could validate them, and carrying out multiple virtual dissemination activities and various small size Multiplier Events that complied with the COVID-19 safety measures.

Thanks to all of this, we managed to successfully develop a highly impactful project that is already being used in the participating entities, in many collaborating entities, and several educational centers.

Project Website

http://www.skolaromani.org/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 134060 Eur

Project Coordinator

Asociación Gitanas Feministas por la Diversidad & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Fundación Punjab
• Centrul Rromilor “Amare Rromentza””
• E-Romnja Association for Promoting Roma Women’s Rights
• RIBALTAMBIÇÃO- Associação para a Igualdade de Género nas Comunidades Ciganas
• La voix des Rroms