In 2019 Roma Education Fund allocated a grant to the Center for Youth Integration (CYI) – a NGO, functioning in Belgrade, Serbia, to continue its 10-year long program of education with a project called “School Instead of Street”. Previously the interventions of the Center have been backed by the H. Stepic CEE Charity and the Church World Service. The program efforts of CYI proved to be a useful intermediary between the beneficiaries and the stakeholders, such as schools, centers for social work and health centers. The program has been going on in cooperation with four primary schools in the district of Palilula, Belgrade.
Beneficiaries of the Program are boys and girls (preschoolers, first and second graders), and their families which are living in extreme poverty in two informal settlements in the Municipality of Palilula in Belgrade. The children-beneficiaries have been exposed to discrimination, numerous risks and lack access to school facilities.
The project “School Instead of Street” shows that the continuous support undoubtedly increases the participation of Roma children in education. The program also strives for children’s gradual socialization, through provision of museum visits, trips to playrooms, sports gatherings – which children have been deprived of due to poverty unlike their peers.
The Project Education Team consists of a social worker, a nurse, educators and outreach workers and volunteers, who provide direct learning support to children – both in class and during extracurricular activities (i.e. educational workshops organized with the aim to facilitate children’s coping with the school curriculum).
The Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has signed a Memorandum of Understanding and gave permission to the CYI’s program of Education’s educators to provide direct learning support to its Roma beneficiaries in schools during classes.
The shared stories of the project team reveal that the Center for Youth Integration has been guaranteeing:
- Building trust and positive relationships with the beneficiaries
- Planned support to children and families by social workers
- Helping children with their individual education plans
- Provision of home tutoring workshops and visits to first and second graders
- Motivating and consulting the Roma parents on what is better for children’s schooling, providing the families with the best learning options for their children
- Discussing with parents on children’s progress in grades, attendance, meeting school duties and requirements
- Ensuring vaccination, health identification and medical examination for first and second graders
Hence, the key results achieved during 2019/2020 school year:
- 243 beneficiaries went through the Program of Education (55 future preschoolers, 56 preschoolers, 66 first graders and 66 second graders)
- 164 educational workshops held
- Mediation services provided for the families of the children- beneficiaries
- 124 families of the children-beneficiaries received food and hygiene packages during the pandemic isolation
- 55 first and second graders have completed all medical examinations and received the vaccines needed for certificates for starting school.
In respect to health services, the social worker is currently helping the project families obtain health identification for the few children who did not prepare yet the necessary documentation. The number of CYI’s beneficiaries who have certified health identification is constantly changing throughout the school year. In most cases it depends on the eventual employment of the parents or evidence taken from the social welfare electronic system. So far, no records have been kept on the health insurance status of the parents or other family members of the CYI’s beneficiaries. The project team has been constantly checking the online database of the Health Center to receive news on whether the beneficiaries have been health- insured and so to act accordingly.
Center for Youth Integration (CYI) generally believes that early inclusion in education is the way out of poverty for the Roma children and youth. NGO has been successfully implementing programs of education with Roma children from informal settlements for already ten years, supporting more than 500 boys and girls in primary education for one decade.
