Basic education for Roma adults Erasmus Project

Project Title

Basic education for Roma adults

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Romas and/or other minorities; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

The project was developed in order to give adult Romas and Roma families a possibility to gain easier access to basic education.
As a 2012 study conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights shows, Roma still face discrimination and exclusion. Around 20% of Roma adults consider themselves as illiterate, about 14% of Roma children don’t attend school at all. Not having access to education has a lot of negative aspects – increased risk of poverty, high number of unemployment and so on.
Therefore it seemed necessary to us to focus on the topic of basic education – meaning not only skills like reading, writing and digital skills, but also including topics like education, health and so on.

The six participating organisations from Austria, Bosnia, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Serbia are all working with Roma people in different projects and have come together to focus on education. The participating organisations all have noticed in their work with Roma that education is a basis for them to get employment, but also to give them perspectives for the future. The project was developed as an European project since in our opinion the topic does concern many countries and therefore solutions should be looked after on an European level.
Most important activities were the interviews conducted at the very beginning of the project – both with experts (education, adult education, basic education,…) and people from the Roma community in order to find out what topics, methodology and conditions are important for our development process. Also, meetings with Roma communities to get their feedback about the project and to sensitize them for the topic of education.
In six transnational meetings, experts (including people from Roma minority themselves) were invited, data was collected and discussed and best practice projects were analysed. It was important to us in the whole project to not only discuss the topic with experts from the pedagogic field or social work, but also give the target group, Roma people, a chance to voice their opinion as well.
At the end of the project, one manual (IO1) and one toolkit (IO2) were prepared. They consider special target groups, for example travelling Roma or Roma living and working outside their home countries and include the knowledge of experts, the feedback of Roma and the analysis of best practice models in Europe.
The manual IO1 focuses on adults while the toolkit IO2 focuses on learning in families since family is a very important place for Roma people and is also rarely considered as a learning space in basic education.
A third output (IO3) provides useful links and resources and also gives an overview over the situation of Roma in Europe.
The manual IO1 and toolkit IO2 were evaluated by students from Austrian Universities on a theoretical basis, but also by observing testing classes, where the developed units were used in a real situation for teaching Roma adults.
It was important for us to make the public aware of the situation of this ethnic minority and increase the awareness about discrimination factors. To achieve this, dissemination of the project process and results was crucial as well as the inclusion of the public in the discussion via multiplier events. Furthermore, students in pedagogic and social studies took an active part in the project.
Methods used were interviews with experts and Roma people, research on the internet, public discussion of the results and the development of the manuals.
The results the project aimed at are wide spread – from raising awareness (especially in the areas of politics, pedagogic and social studies) to heighten the self-consciousness of Roma by inclusion to develop concepts that can be used and implemented easily. The long term results the partners hoped to achieve are better chances for Roma in the future due to an easier access to education and due to a higher awareness in the Roma community itself about the importance of education.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 191626 Eur

Project Coordinator

Caritas für Menschen in Not & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Cáritas Diocesana de Viseu
• CARITAS BOSNE I HERCEGOVINE
• Caritas Subotica
• Asociatia “Caritas – Asistenta Sociala” Filiala Organizatiei Caritas Alba Iulia
• Fondazione Caritas Ambrosiana