News

The National Democratic Institute – Serbia and Rromanipen organization organized regional meeting about Roma educational integration in Eastern Europe. It took place in Kragujevac, Serbia on November 17 and 18. Representatives of Roma NGOs from Serbia, Slovak Republic, Macedonia, Romania and Bulgaria took part in the meeting.
The participants visited schools in Kragujevac that integrate Roma students and took part in the conference organized by Municipality of Kragujevac. They saw at terrain the experience gathered in Serbia and shared experience from their countries.
Deyan Kolev (CenterAmalipe) and Petar Borisov (Sham Foundation) represented Bulgaria. They provoked huge interest explaining the experience for introducing Roma folklore and culture as elective subject in more that 200 schools in Bulgaria. Serbian participants shared that they would like to introduce similar subject and to use ideas from textbooks and student-books published by Amalipe in Bulgaria.
The practice of Roma school assistants that is wide-spread in Serbia also raised discussion. Romanian participants explained that health mediators are well-accepted in Romania unlike school assistants who did not received sustainable funding. Deyan Kolev and Petar Borisov overdrew that the attempts for introducing teaching assistants in Bulgaria failed. “This position could not finds its place under the conditions of delegated school budgets and I would advice you to work for Roma teachers in stead of teaching assistants! A Roma teacher could change significantly the school environment and this is what we need! – explained D. Kolev.”
The participants raised suggestion for organizing such a meeting in Bulgaria in order to see the practice of introducing Roma folklore subject and the desegregation of Roma schools.