THE ROMA COMMUNITY IS ALSO DIVERSE: FORMING YOUTHWORKERS FOR INCLUSION Erasmus Project

Project Title

THE ROMA COMMUNITY IS ALSO DIVERSE: FORMING YOUTHWORKERS FOR INCLUSION

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 youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Romas and/or other minorities; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

The inclusion of LGTBI+ Roma persons is not easy because they suffer from a multiple discrimination from their families, their community, and society, which isolates them, segregates them, and turns them into third-class citizens.
If this is hard for adults, it is much harder for youth, since a great percentage of them suffer rejection from their own family and community, often even being expelled from their homes, which leads to a very serious situation of severe exclusion that leads them to a future of precariousness, poverty, and no opportunities for literacy. The obstacles they suffer just for being Roma, mainly racism and xenophobia, are also added to the equation.

Through the project “THE ROMA COMMUNITY IS ALSO DIVERSE: TRAINING YOUTH WORKERS FOR INCLUSION” various Roma and LGTBI+ rights entities want to work with this group because of their special vulnerability, as they are rejected and segregated from their own Roma community. They are young people without training or with a very low training level, who need tools and processes to come out of the hard situation in which they are, and follow a path of training and integration, thanks to the development of a training itinerary of social and labor insertion adapted to their needs. However, when they finally have the courage to rebuild their lives, they find themselves within a system that is not adapted or thought to work with them, so they generally never reach success.

How can we get young Roma persons who have lost their family protection and have few or no resources to face a society that also rejects them? To answer this question we propose to create a strategic partnership of associations of Roma women and entities for the defense of LGTBI+ rights, which aims to promote the inclusion of one of the groups that suffers from the greatest social exclusion in Europe, young LGTBI+ Roma persons, through the creation of a methodological guide and non-formal open educational resources that facilitate their social, educational, and labor inclusion.

This project will produce two Intellectual Outputs of great quality and impact:

– The first Intellectual Output (O1): METHODOLOGICAL GUIDE FOR YOUTHWORKERS: THE INCLUSION OF YOUNG LGBTI+ ROMA IN EUROPE
– The second Intellectual Output (O2): “OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR INCLUSION IN DIVERSITY: INNOVATIVE MATERIALS FOR YOUNG LGTBI+ ROMA IN EUROPE
These are two high-quality Intellectual Outputs, which along with various tangible and structural results, are intended to help the youth workers and leisure trainers from the reception centers and associations that work with this group, by providing them with the tools, knowledge, and skills to help them rejoin the educational and/or work environment with guarantees of success, to achieve a greater social inclusion.
In addition, these results will allow us to expand the training offer of LA ESCUELA VIRTUAL FEMINISTA ROMANI (the Roma Feminist Virtual School – created by the partner organizations in previous Erasmus Plus projects in the field of youth), and to create a European network of entities that will work specifically for the social and educational inclusion of the LGBTI+ Roma community, a group with great educational and social disadvantages.

Lastly, it should be noted that the impact of this project is expected to be very strong on the beneficiary group, but also among the partner and collaborating entities and on reception and welfare centers across Europe. Also on the local and regional level, where more than 100 LGTBI+ Roma youth will be directly involved, which will improve their opportunities for social and labor inclusion towards the end of the project; and at the national and European level, thanks to the widespread dissemination that will be made of the project and its results. We want to create a sustainable network that lasts over time, and that makes the long-term impact even greater since this project will be the seed to create a GITANXS LGTBI + YOUTH RECEPTION CENTERS, which not only provide them with a roof and a place to live those young gypsies who have been expelled from their family and community because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, but will also be spaces of integral inclusion through non-formal and informal education, enhancing their empowerment and employability.

In order to achieve the impact and the expected results (intellectual, tangible and structural) we will carry out 4 transnational meetings (Spain, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria), virtual meetings, various national activities, dissemination and evaluation, as well as a great multiplier event in Madrid on the LGTBI + international pride day in 2021, which will focus on the dissemination of the two intellectual products.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 99660 Eur

Project Coordinator

Asociación Gitanas Feministas por la Diversidad & Country: ES

Project Partners

• FOUNDATION GLAS BALGARIA
• E-Romnja Association for Promoting Roma Women’s Rights
• Diverse Youth Network Association