BUDAPEST, HUNGARY – The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Roma Initiative Program has come to its fourth, last year. The manager of the initiation, Susan S. Kutor has evaluated the program successful.
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY – The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Roma Initiative Program has come to its fourth, last year. The manager of the initiation, Susan S. Kutor has evaluated the program successful.
The four-year long program, with a total budget of $2.8 million, implemented in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, intended to help the cooperation of Governments, local governments, civil and minority organizations of the three countries in order to improve the conditions and integration of indigenous displaced people, mainly Roma. This comprehensive four-year program, implemented by Partners for Democratic Change (San Francisco) and its affiliate Partners Hungary Foundation, focused on integration of the Roma minority and Hungarian majority
The program helped according to the needs and concepts of representatives of self and minority governments in decreasing the social and political isolation of Roma as well as improving their living conditions. For instance, one primary school in North-Hungary was helped to install e-learning. The e-learning program is used in grades 4-8 for classes in Hungarian language, Hungarian literature, history, mathematics and German. As part of the project, a teaching manual was prepared to assist teachers in the use of this new methodology. In her remarks, Ambassador Foley emphasized that her country was proud to have supported a program the implementation and application of which would give assistance to the further education of disadvantaged students. Other schools built playgrounds while other regions used the help for adult education programs.
April H. Foley, Ambassador of the United States in Hungary attended the program closing conference, and talked about the joint activities that made the programs so successful. He said the work was worth to be pursued in such a productive team spirit.
