QUALIFLY PROJECT Ethnocultural Dialogue Foundation Bulgaria Working meeting Istanbul November 2005

Let’s talk about… Bulgaria - General info Roma community in Bulgaria - Past and present Opportunities and challenges for Roma - Education and employment in focus The State and the NGO sector - Good example About us… - Mission - Activities - Conclusions based on experience

Bulgaria – general info A country with a history of 1300 years, offering exceptional conditions for tourism and recreation and famous for its rose oil… The democratic changes in the social-political life of our country started 15 years ago. In the present moment Bulgaria is one of the candidate countries for membership in the European Union

Bulgaria – population (2001) Ethnic composition (official data): Bulgarian – Turkish – Roma – Other… Religious affiliation (official data): Bulgarian Orthodox–82,6% Muslim -12,2%; Roman Catholic – 0,6%; Protestant – 0,5%; Other – 4,1% Total population –

Roma community in Bulgaria - Past and Present Centuries on end the Roma have been living on Bulgarian land. As it is all around the world, they are not a monolithic mass – they are internally differentiated into a number of groups and subgroups according to their lifestyle, the religion they are confessing, or the professional specification of the group. The Roma people are the growing minority of the country

Opportunities for Roma people - education and employment in focus Opportunities: After the democratic changes have set in, the Roma had and have the opportunity to speak freely their mother language, to study it at school, to create and write in their own language, to learn about their own history. A great number of cultural-educational organizations, movements and foundations, which take part in the solving of problems, connected with social-economical issues have been registered. On the 2 February 2005 Bulgaria was a hosting country of the opening of the Decade of the Roma integration

Challenges for Roma people - education and employment in focus Problems, resulting from the unemployment The percentage of the totally illiterate among the young Roma reaches 25%, and together with those, who share that it is difficult for them to read, the percentage reaches 60%(!). High percentage of students, non-regularly attending or dropping out of school Left jobless and without means of earning their living, this group of illiterate Roma very often becomes part of the criminal contingent

The State and the NGO Sector Ministry of Labour and Social Policy organizes courses for literacy and professional qualification for unemployed people, responding to certain requirements, with subsidies from the European Union. As a whole there is no active state policy for overcoming the illiteracy. Certain non-governmental organizations also work in this field, but their experience is not systematized, it is not generalized in order to be multiplied in practice

Good Example - IIZ/DVV Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association (IIZ/DVV) - Days of the lifelong learning - Schools “Second Chance” - Master program “Management of Adult Education

About us … Ethnocultural Dialogue Foundation The mission of the foundation is to contribute for the development of the ethnical tolerance and the social adaptation of the Roma community in the conditions created by the democratic changes through a dialogue between the different ethnical communities, the state and municipal administration, and the NGOs. An accent in the foundation’s activities are the educational and health programmes

Activities… Course for literacy and professional qualification for cook assistants for 15 young people, who grew up without parents and are accommodated in special boarding-houses 2002 – project “Help and self-help for the community” project -40 women (seamstresses) and 20 men (constructors) of Roma origin were trained and received professional qualification 2003/ project “School Second Chance” - 16 men and women of Roma origin graduated 8th grade, accomplished their primary education and gained professional qualification and were taught social skills and citizen education – project “Second chance – social integration through education” men and women became literate

Conclusions based on experience- I Need of training in social skills and citizen education Need of combination of education courses and education for accomplishment of an educational degree with education, providing professional qualification, which gives opportunity for a better job realization on the labour market Need of broader range of partnership with state and municipal administrations, with the employers’ unions and other organizations Need of international partnerships for the opening of more schools like “Second Chance”

Conclusions based on experience- II Need of specialists, trained in the respective sphere Need of monitoring the quality of the knowledge Need of detailed analysis of the results and multiplication of outputs and didactic materials after the project ends. Need of the media involvement for popularization of the idea for continuing education as a factor for a better social integration of vulnerable groups of people.

The end …or… just the beginning… Thank you for your attention!