This project is designed to boost the process of building a stronger civil society in Macedonia toward better protection of child rights, in particular ensuring all children from Roma communities have equitable and equal access to quality education through the formal education system in the country. Project activities are focused on nine Municipalities of Macedonia (Shuto Orizari, Chair/Topaana, Bitola, Prilep, Kumanovo, Shtip, Kochani, Tetovo, Vinica) that demonstrate the highest shares of Roma populations.
For achieving this goal, five specific objectives are set:
- Strengthen the dialogue and cooperation between government and grass-root CSOs working in the field of inclusion of Roma children in mainstream education;
- Increase the existing knowledge base on issues pertaining to Roma inclusion to education and the society in general and propose an advanced policy framework that facilitates Roma children’s future pathways towards the labour market through increased participation in mainstream education;
- Boost implementation of existing legislation on Roma inclusion by building the organisational and human resource capacity of grass-root organisations working with Roma populations in 8 Municipalities along with the establishment of a dedicated grant scheme mechanism;
- Improve the capacity of local authorities to realise Roma inclusion programmes and measures by outsourcing implementation to CSOs;
- Raise awareness on the role of civil society in promoting equal access to education of Roma.
In practical terms, the project will support both CSOs and local authorities in designing, implementing and coordinating educational inclusive initiatives targeted at Roma children and their families at local level, based on cooperation mechanisms. At social level, the project, through its public large scale awareness raising campaign, will help change public mind-set, as it will advocate for a wider paradigm shift that recognises the necessity of non-discriminatory and equitable access of Roma children to quality education.
So far, a thorough background research and situation analysis was conducted, with the aim to produce a comprehensive situation analysis report that will depict the status in Macedonia with regards to Roma populations, and particularly Roma children and their families and the challenges they face in their educational participation and inclusion, the existing legislation and policy framework, and the CSOs providing support services to Roma and/or children.
Moreover, a thorough mapping of CSOs active in this field took place, with a specific focus on assessing their operational, technical and human resource capacities.
At the same time, a comprehensive qualitative analysis from a policy and legislation perspective was performed, determining recurrent issues/gaps, as well as identifying and proposing sustainable ways to promote the development of an enabling policy and legislative framework to address them.
All these outputs were presented to a roundtable of local stakeholders, which took place on July 12th 2017. The participants belonged to various institutions, local Authorities and CSOs and expressed their views and input about the above mentioned reports.
The next step of the project involves the design and implementation of the sub-granting mechanism for the CSOs, accompanied by a capacity building programme for the sub-grantees and the implementation of a monitoring framework for their work.