Description
Homeless youths in Romania, most of them Roma, have very limited access to the labour market. On the one hand, they live in extreme poverty conditions and they face discrimination, on the other hand, they lack skills and self-esteem for successful professional integration. The objective of the project is to facilitate socio-professional integration of homeless youths by increasing their labour market adaptability. The project will create the grounds for youths to have positive work-related experiences and acquire competences in ecological gardening/horticulture. A horticultural therapy program will be put in place and a garden with greenhouse will be created. Also life skills and professional integration development programs will be developed. Different kind of training will be provided for youths and for educational staff and volunteers. The project will benefit homeless youths and their families as well as professionals working in the field.
Summary of project results
Poor life conditions, very low level of education, lack of professional tuition, underdevelopment of life skills and discrimination are the main factors that prevent the individuals living in disadvantaged environments from getting a job and breaking out of street life vicious cycle. Social adaptation problems must be mentioned too, caused by acquiring deviant behaviours specific to the social environment the individuals grew up in (drug addiction, begging, prostitution, dependence of assistants), low self-esteem and a low resistance to frustration. This was the context in which Stea Association, decided work with young, mainly Roma, homeless in Satu Mare, by developing a complex mechanism of intervention created in order to help them fight for social integration in order to become active citizens of the community, able to sustain themselves. The „Start for social inclusion through work” project facilitated socio-professional integration of homeless people from Satu Mare by increasing their adaptability to labour market demands. The central element of the project was the horticulture therapy programme, which allowed the 47 beneficiaries (out of which 36 Roma) to go through work-like experiences in protected conditions in order to develop mechanisms needed to be able to comply with labour market requests. Within the project, Stea Association created two gardens with solariums where the young people learned to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers, respecting the principles of agro-ecology. This programme was completed with training in the fields of agro-ecology, socio-professional counselling, and life skills development programmes. These enabled beneficiaries in addressing various personal and social problems, helping them to find solutions. The most important achievements are: 47 young beneficiaries reached different levels of improvement regarding social and professional integration abilities; 3 of the beneficiaries of the project found jobs and other 16 periodically worked as daily employees; 20 beneficiaries obtained professional qualification as "worker in the domain of plants growing". The experience of this project demonstrates that the homeless are capable of becoming active members of society given adequate support that would determine them to believe in themselves and to make efforts to changes their lives for the better.
Summary of bilateral results