Press Release | Bucharest | Romania
On April 25th, 2023, Roma Education Fund celebrated, together with their guests, the opening of the One-Stop-Shop (OSS) Centre, a venue located on 60 Vaselor Street, Bucharest, Romania, right on the ground floor of the foundation’s headquarters. At the event were present Mr. Radu Szekely, Advisor within the Chancellery of the Prime Minister at the Government of Romania, the vice mayor of sector 2, Ms. Alexandra Chirilă, Ana Goncearova from the Ukrainian Embassy in Romania, representatives of different Romanian and international NGOs, representatives of the Social Assistance and Child Protection Departments, journalists, and stakeholders.
The OSS Centre project is dedicated to support Roma refugees from Ukraine and is financed through grants from the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB)’s Migrant and Refugee Fund. Established by the CEB in 2015, this trust fund has been used to help the Bank’s member states integrate migrants and refugees in their host communities throughout Europe.
“The CEB is very pleased to see the OSS Centre officially opening its doors to Roma refugees from Ukraine, thanks to the MRF funding and close collaboration with all stakeholders involved. CEB has been proudly supporting the Roma Education Fund since 2013, through loans and grants, for a total of €5 million” – Ms. Wassila Dridi, CEB’s Country Manager for Romania.
The project One-Stop-Shop started in the second part of 2022 and has been implemented in different phases. During the first months of the project the team of facilitators from Roma Education Fund and Aresel Civic Platform, a partner in the project, have closely worked with hundreds of Roma refugees from Ukraine, offering assistance and support, easing their staying in Romania and their interactions with the Romanian state institutions.
“Last year, the sociologist Claudiu Ivan together with the facilitators conducted an assessment to a significant number of Roma refugees from Ukraine to identify their real needs, thus designing our activities based on the results of the survey. Moreover, in March 2023 we organized a round table attended by several organizations and institutions that offer educational and support services to Ukrainian refugees. Before starting the activities, all team members attended a “training of trainers” course to equip them with the proper communication skills needed for interacting with people that have been suffering from war trauma. As so, all the activities in the Centre were specially designed to offer consistent and substantial support to Roma children and their parents who fled the war in Ukraine” – Claudia Lixandru, co-director Roma Education Fund.
Phase two of the project started after the team finished designing the interior and the activities for the Centre. The activities in the OSS Centre started in March 2023 and will continue until the end of the year. The REF’s team of experts have already been working, in the past weeks, in the OSS Centre, with 75 children of different ages, involving all of them in educational activities tailored to close the educational gap between them and those already enrolled in Romanian schools. Also, the team has been providing to their parents, 30 adults, psychological support to counteract negative symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress because of their forced departure from Ukraine.
“The beneficiaries who come to the OSS Center every week need to be involved in activities that give them a touch of normality and an extra chance for a future marked, unfortunately, by uncertainty. The children were involved in different workshops, starting with English language courses, drawing classes, graphic and photo/video workshops. We are also preparing, together with our partners, different summer school activities” – Răzvan Martin, REF’s project manager of OSS Centre.
These activities are delivered by dedicated coaches, psychologists, and trained professionals. Two of the facilitators are Ukrainian refugees of Roma and non-Roma ethnicity: Izaura Dryma and Alla Frankovska. The coordinator of all the activities in the Centre is Yaroslava Haiova, also a refugee from Ukraine.
Roma Education Fund has started to support Roma refugees from Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Together with their partners – Aresel Civic Platform and Roma Entrepreneurship Development Initiative (REDI) – they launched, in March 2022, the Roma for Humanity Campaign. More than 30 volunteers have offered various types of support to more than 5.000 Roma refugees.
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