"Amaro Foro is offering counselling and support for integration into the society of the Sinty and Roma in Berlin, also running the largest social contact point for Roma in Germany which is funded by Berlin local government. It provides advice on employment, education, health, housing and social security issues and support Roma in their affairs with the administration.After the Corona virus problem appeared and all the services moved online we realized that we have a big problem when it's about offering the usual services to our beneficiary because they can't access them trough internet.We had discussions with our partners from Romania, Hungary, Macedonia where our partners face similar situations and we tried to identify a solution for this.This lead the Roma adults to face a much bigger exclusion, their access to public services being much more restricted booth because of economical situations (they don’t afford devices from where to access internet and they don’t afford to pay the internet bill) and because of educational situation (more than 40% of the Roma adults are illiterate – Fundamental Rights Agency data)Being a group with a high percentage of illiteracy we needed to identify an innovative way of teaching how to use internet with as less as possible written information's.Project objectives:With our project we aim to increase the access of Roma adults to public services by developing a tool which to allow them to learn easier how to use internet for this.The project objectives are:1. To develop 2 innovative artistic tolls which to make easier the learning process of the Roma about internet and how to use the internet for daily life activities during this project.2. To increase the ICT knowledge and skills of 80 Roma adults from 4 partners countries during the project3. To increase the knowledge and skills of 20 social workers, health mediators, NGO people and volunteers about how to support adults to develop their internet skills and knowledge during the project4. To capacitate Roma and pro-Roma civil society organizations in working with Roma using modern technologyThe number of participants are 80 adults from four countries whose ages can be divided into two groups, young Roma adults between 18-35 and middle-aged Roma adults between 36-55. Besides, 20 social workers, health mediators, NGO people and volunteers will be included. The participants’ profile: We will have Roma adults who cant easily access internet and cant get social services provided via internet (social services, shopping, banking, school, health services, information and also a social life), and most of them are illiterate which means they don’t know how to write and read. We will have diverse grup of Roma people from ghettos, segregated communities, rural areas, migrant or very traditional Roma and Roma in middle class standards. We will have also 20 social workers, health mediators, NGO people and volunteers from staff of NGOs who work with Roma in order to help them to increase the knowledge of those people to be able to benefit from internet and offer them online support.Activities:1. We will create 2 intellectual outputs (""Basic Digital Skills"" and ""Digital skills for all"") first aiming to teach basic digital skills about how to use internet devices and online communication channels for illiterate people mainly based on illustrations and second one about safe use of internet to access public services and to do daily life activities like shopping, banking, education and other. This one will also use illustrations but also small movies and small text. In order to do that we will work for each guide in 3 stages (making the tool, testing the tool and gathering recommendations and reshaping the final version). For the evaluation we will involve 20 mentors from Romania Germany, Hungary and Macedonia, 5/ country and 80 adults, 20/ country. The mentors will be trained in a 3 days training. The Roma adults will receive each one tablet and will be supported in the learning process by one mentor. To gather suggestions and recommendations we will have two evaluation meetings during the testing phase.The tools which we produce will be wide disseminated at national level in the 4 countries where we tested but also at European and international level with the help of ERGO network The methodology of the project will involve different approaches from research, experts meetings, practical testing in Roma communities of the tools to international dissemination conferences where we will disseminate this project.We expect that the developed tools, based on principles of digital citizenship will help Roma adults and other disadvantaged groups to quickly mitigate knowledge and skill gaps of utilizing the internet as well as define the appropriate and responsible use of technology among the users.Roma adults as digital citizens will promote and poses the following values:respect, educate, and protection of human rights"

Early School Leaving (ESL) is high on the European Agenda. EU2020 aims to reduce the rate of ESL in every member states, below the level of 10%. ESL is on the rise in both Hungary and Romania. Those two countries are amongst those having a larger than average rate of ESL in the EU, despite efforts made by the educational structures. Phenomenon of ESL is occurring more frequent to young people with disadvantaged background, often the members of Roma communities.LEADNFL project was a two-year long strategic partnership funded by Erasmus+ aimed at researching the causes, circumstances and means to prevent early school leaving and also the connection between early school leaving and having children at an early age. The acronym stands for Learned Inactivity – Decreasing the Number of ESL Students in Disadvantaged Communities with the Power of Non-Formal Learning addressing the complex targets of the project.These targets were structured into three phases: the research phase, the methodology development phase and the final phase for dissemination of results. The research phase was conducted in Romania and Hungary involving more than 300 (Hungary: 162, Romania:150) subjects in each country using the snowball method as sampling. Subjects were early school leavers between ages 14-22 all from disadvantaged communities. The research used both qualitative and quantitative methods: survey and focus group discussions. The research concentrated on two communities, achieving representative results were out of the scope of the initiative.One of the key findings of the research was that while amongst all ESL students 29% had children, 45% of those were not planned. Based on the results of the research we can say that among those subjects who already had children 72% named having children, 19% named lack of motivation to study, 15% named frequently being absent from school as the main reason for their early school leaving. It became clear that students starting a family do not have the necessary support from the social/educational system which would allow them to both graduate from school and fulfil their duties as parents.The methodology development phase was conducted through transnational meetings with the attendance of experts in the field of non-formal education. This phase focused on putting together a non-formal education methodology in order to decrease the number of ESL students, which will be made public in a form of a methodology handbook in three languages during October 2017. Beside the dissemination of the results in the coming publication, the three participating partners organise a conference for experts in Budapest – Hungary, Resita – Romania and Brussels – Belgium.

The text is in English.

<< Objectives >>The project aims to strengthen the capacity of education staff that work on the empowerment of Roma women. Throughout the implementation of the activities, we will develop outputs that will make the knowledge and content generated within the project widely applicable and ready for transfer to other settings. The key objective of the project is to ensure that the NGO sector and other stakeholders working with the RC develop skills and knowledge to provide better quality treatment to Roma women.<< Implementation >>We will organise a kick-off meeting in order to plan the implementation of the project, which will take place in Italy. Within the project implementation, we will hold two transnational meetings, one in Slovenia and one in Hungary, focusing on the transfer of good practices and the strengthening of the competences of the persons involved. Over a longer period of time, the consortium will carry out local activities with thr RC.. The project will be concluded with a final meeting and conference.<< Results >>The project will develop results that will be made available as a freely accessible learning resource for education staff and other stakeholders who work with the Roma community. As outputs we will produce R1; an online compendium of good practices on Roma inclusion in society/labour market, etc., with additional methodological and strategic orientations for the implementation of practices in other settings, R2 will be a collection of podcasts focusing on Roma cultural heritage.

Association Co-Efficient and its partners has a wide range of experience/expertise of involvement young people with fewer opportunities into local and international actions/learning experiences. Inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities is a main horizontal objective of our daily work, offering regular community and development services in our Afterschool service at Gyöngyös. Early school leaving (ESL) is a concerning phenomenon across Europe, but particulary in Hungary and Romania. A joint empirical research conducted by Association Co-Efficient and Nevo Parudimos between 2015-17 (LEADNFL) confirmed that ESL is having a particularly negative effect on marginalised Roma youth living in poverty, often experiencing double discrimination an facing the negative consequences of ESL.Youth work had a particular responsibility during the lockdowns experienced in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic: marginalised young people couldn’t follow the digital curriculum for a variety of reasons, further boosting the negative effects already experienced. The problem was not only access to digital tools, but more deeply routed: a mismatch in institutional expectations and available support.’Avas Khetane - Get Together’ project aims for a paradigm shift by developing a long-term structural methodology using art and experiental learning as a tool, tailor-made with individual development plans for the needs of young people with fewer opportunities, endangered by ESL. The project combines the expertise of youth workers and teachers, as it is cross-sectoral involving primary schools a grassroot human service providers engaged in youth work.The partnership aim to gather best practices, develop the tailor made methodology, pilot it with the involvement of 30 young people and widely disseminate the results via the intellectual outputs.ACTIVITIES OF THE PROJECT1. Kick-off in Hungary – start of the project (3 working days + two travel days)2. 3 subsequent Transnational meetings- TMs scheduled for major milestones3. IO1– methodology handbook based designed, tested by a cross-sectoral and multinational team of experts. 4. Dissemination: national conferences organised by Hungarian and Romanian partners to disseminate the results of the project and an international conference aimed at mainstreaming the results for the wider European audience.