Participatory Research of needs, main problems

and potentials in education of Roma population in Vojvodina

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According to official statistical records from the 2002 census, there are 108,193 Roma citizens in Serbia, or 1.44% of the entire population. Opposite to the official data, researchers and demographers estimate that there are 400 to 450 thousand Roma who reside in Serbia.

Currently Roma are the largest national minority in Serbia (excluding Kosovo). However, the status of national minority for Roma was only officially recognized  in 2002, after the federal Law on National Minorities was brought.

In the province of Vojvodina there are 29,057 registered Roma or 1.43% of the entire population. Again it is presumed that the number of Roma is significantly higher, because large number of them still register as Serbs, Hungarians or Romanians, and many of them are still not registered at all. The estimated number of Roma living in Vojvodina is 80,000.

The social status of Roma people in Serbia is very unfavorable. Roma families have serious problems related to poverty, appalling sanitary conditions in their settlements, lack of proper documents needed to access health care and education, etc. Most Roma people are uneducated or have only elementary school education. For these reasons most are unemployed or forced to take low-paid jobs. Preoccupied by everyday survival problems, uneducated Roma parents do not have enough capacities to send their children to school: lack of documents, money to buy school books and stationary, shoes, clothes, even bus tickets, prevents them from even considering enrolling their child in a school.

Consequently, following the same pattern as their parents, Roma children become unemployed adults and/or nonqualified workers. Lack of health insurance and basic social welfare is another big problem for Roma people.  Many of them don't have birth certificates and other documents (because they don't register their marriage or birth of their child), and these documents are necessary to access social and health care. In general, Roma people do not receive and are unaware of relevant information related to how and where to practice their rights. 

The education of Roma children is seen as the main tool for their social inclusion and better living conditions in the future. Also, there is a need for informing and educating Roma parents about the process of obtaining their social rights, education, health care and family planning. There is also a need for assisting Roma in the process of achieving their economic sustainability.

Current NSHC-led projects targeted at Roma people:

• Project for humanitarian aid to Roma people, dedicated to the Roma elderly, who were born before 9th May 1945. The project, which is being run in 13 municipalities across Vojvodina, is funded by The International Organisation for Migrations (IOM).
• Field AIDS prevention in Roma communities. The project is being realised in Novi Sad and Subotica. The donator is the ‘Global Fond’ fund.
• Education against poverty – initiative that advocates involvement of Roma population into the state education system. Five municipalities in Vojvodina (Zrenjanin, Opovo, Titel, Bac, and Secanj) will soon be producing action plans for improving the educational status of Roma people. This project will be co-produced with the Roma Student Society, and supported by the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC).
• The gender construct in Roma communities – a participatory research project. The project is funded by the ‘Foundation Partnerships in Health’.
• The project for aiding education and social integration of the Roma/Askalian/Egyptian children from the Adice neighbourhood of Novi Sad. This is a project that NSHC has been running for over four years without any sponsorship. Instead, the project is being executed by involving volunteers and collecting contributions.

The main goal of this project is to give a chance to the impoverished Roma/Askalian/Egyptian children to get formal education. This would indirectly lead to their future economical strengthening and social integration. Consequently, this would contribute to fighting poverty in the society, since illiterate new generations only deepen the material hardship of the overall population.

This project is a continuation of another project, Roma Children Centre, which was funded by ‘Fond za socijalne inovacije’ between 2003 and 2004. After the funding stopped, due to enthusiasm of their volunteers, NSHC continued to organize workshops with the Roma children from Adice.

Since July 2007, NSHC does not have facilities where the educational activities would continue taking place. Instead, these activities are being conducted in the primary school ‘Jozef Atila’ in the Telep neighbourhood. The workshops are now only weekly, which does not match real needs of the children.

Presently, our workshop involves more than 50 Roma/Askalian/Egyptian children, who are divided in 6 age groups.

The volume of our activities is currently reduced to minimum, solely due to enthusiasm of our 25 volunteers, mainly humanities students. Activities that involve children are being conducted in very poor conditions, comparing to what they should be. In February 2008 NSHC secured a permit to use facilities of ‘Mesna Zajednica Adice’, once every week.

In addition to regular workshops of educational character, the volunteers keep a good contact with the children’s parents. They pay regular visits to the parents’ homes, coordinate their activities with teaching and welfare stuff from school that the children attend, organize shows and parties for the children to participate in, take the children to the cinema, etc.

Activities that the NSHC volunteers involved in the project participate in:

·        Educational activities for children that do not attend school. These include improvement of the children’s level of literacy (for the displaced Roma/Askalian/Egyptian children who do not speak Serbian), and enhancement of their social skills. The activities are thought of as foundation of the process of the children’s enrolment to the primary school.

·        Educational activities for children that do attend school. These include assistance in understanding the curriculum, help in doing homework, preparing for tests, and improving results. Additionally, the volunteers regularly track the children’s school records.

·        Creative workshops for all children. These activities have fun as their main component. Through them the children develop social skills and confidence.

·        Additional activities that involve the children: trips, cinema outings, visits to other children’s homes, etc. These activities are important for they give the children a chance to leave their neighbourhood, and develop social skills through being exposed to children from other communities, and by being exposed to culture.

·        Home visits to the children from their groups. The main goal of these activities is to encourage the parents in actively supporting education of their children. During these visits, the volunteers talk to the parents, and discuss the problems that arise in the education of their children. They also work on the parents’ motivation to school their children, and advise them on how to resolve their own problems while trying to educate their children.

·        Visits to schools that the children either attend, or will attend in the future. During these visits the volunteers and the teaching staff talk through common problems that the children face, and suggest their solutions.

Using contributions or short-term donations, NSHC sometimes manages to secure some books and other educational material for the children. They also occasionally buy some clothes and shoes, which the children wear to school.

The following is a list of parties that contributed with some short-term funding:

·        D.O.O. STOTEKS TRGOVINA (one half of 2007.) provided snacks

·        City of Novi Sad and OEBS (jul 2007.) provided educational packs (encyclopaedia, etc.), and other material for workshops

·        Volunteers and Novi Sad citizens provided books, toys and sweets in the action ‘The people of Novi Sad, show your big heart!’. In addition to individual donations, we received funds from two organisations: Primary School Ivan Gundulic and D.O.O. STOTEKS TRGOVINA

·        Humanitarian organisation „Duga“, who donated 25 Christmas presents

·        Biljana Popovic, a volunteer of NSHC (February 2008.) who donated RSD 20,000.00

·        Green House (World Roma Day 8th April 2008) donated 100 sandwiches for the children and participants of the celebration of the World Roma Day

·        BB Minaqua A.D (8th April 2008) donated fruit juice and water bottles

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The Roma Children Center is the most recent project which we have implemented as support for the education of Roma children and youths. Part of the project was also the provision of professional support in order to enable Roma to access social rights and also to advocate for Roma in social, educational and health institutions. Each day, approximately 65 children used the services of the Roma Children Center. Out of 234 beneficiaries of this project, 28 children were included in alphabetisation and activities designed to prepare them for school. Seven children were enrolled in elementary schools and 16 in a school for the elementary education of adults.

Tutoring activities encompassed 75 children who were attending schools but had learning difficulties. At the end of the project, 89.4% of them had successfully finished the school year. Their grades also significantly improved. Since November 2004 the Roma Children Center was no longer supported by the Social Innovations Fund, and our associates have been volunteering in order to keep up the neccessary activities with Roma children. If you are able and willing to support further work of the Roma Children Center, please contact us.

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NOVI SAD HUMANITARIAN CENTER 2004 - 2009