Every morning, Bajram is one of the first children who waits for the mediator to accompany him to school and is one of the most regular and active learners in the classroom. Teachers value him for his dedication and engagement both in learning and in various activities organized in the classroom. During this time, the boy has learned very well to communicate in a language that is not his native; he has learned the alphabet well enough and his greatest pleasure is when he comes out to perform the poems and songs.
Bajram Jashareviq lives in a multi-member family where no one is employed. His parents live off social assistance.
Bajram visits regularly the Roma Education Fund-funded toy library, as he borrows toys and plays at home with them with his siblings.
One of the child’s greatest pleasure is when his mother returns home from the “Your Story” activities, organized for parents in the Community Center of Plementina, Kosovo, and brings him an illustrated book and tells him the story she learnt at the Center. It was a spark of hope for the little Roma boy.
It all became reality thanks to the “Together for Equity in Early Childhood” project, which was run by Kosovo Education Center (2016-2018). The project aimed to improve the learning outcomes and school readiness of disadvantaged Roma children aged 4-6, as well as to strengthen the parenting skills and the linkages between parents and pre-school institutions.
The activities took place in the municipality of Obilic (Plemetina-A, the part of the village where most Roma children attend school in Albanian language and Plemetina-S, the part of Plemetina village where most Roma children attend school in Serbian language) and municipality of Gracanica (Graçanica and the village of Preoce).
Enrollment of children age 4-6 has exceeded the target goal of 186 children. Instead, thanks to the good will of the project team and the stakeholders (school, parents), an extra generation of kids was supported and thus the number of children, enrolled in the mainstream kindergarten facilities (age 4-5) and pre-primary pre-school (age 6), reached 290 – a result, which reached the goal embedded in the National Strategy for Integration of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities in Kosovo (2017-2021) well before the strategic year 2021. The positive impact affected both the current generation, the project team worked with, and the next generation to follow.
All children beneficiaries have received school material packages, school books packages and daily snack. The youngsters have been escorted to school and back on an everyday basis. School mediators, the liaison between the family of the Roma kids and the school authorities, they have been regularly consulting the parents about the early childhood development progress and all challenges surrounding their offspring.
At the end of the project in 2018, altogether 192 Roma children aged 6 to 1st grade transited to mainstream, non-segregated classes.
Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian parents played an essential role in early childhood development and care. During the two project years, more than 1,420 home visits were conducted by the mediators, where the parents were encouraged to enroll their children on time, to follow-up their children’s attendance and GPA and, overall, to serve as examples for the rest of the community.
Parental sessions have proved as a good practice involving Roma mothers into an interactive environment where they read stories and tell the stories to their children, as many of them managed to maintain a small library at home. “Your Story” weekly sessions provided the rare chance for Roma women to have fun activities together, and to discuss topics related to their children’s upbringing and education. Study and entertainment tours, such as cinema visits, Prishtina Germia Park Play Day, visits to other cities were organized for the “Your Story” adults. These outdoor activities have brought parents and teachers closer and facilitated their future communication.
Now watch the video with the heartwarming story from REF Kosovo where volunteers built tables and chairs for little children to do their homework. These corners serve as a creative space for children who just started school in households where there is a lack of space. Many volunteers produce a large number of these working stations for children who are then encouraged by their parents and themselves to study on a regular basis and dare to dream in their corners.
Dream Corners in Plementina (Kosovo) is an initiative supported by the Kosovo Education Center, the World Forum Foundation and the Roma Education Fund and aims towards equipping children with appropriate furniture in order to do their homework in a structured environment instead of doing them on floors, beds or not at all.
*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.
