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Description
In 2017 Ladies Union of Drama – House of Open Hospitality acquired mobile school, after forming collaboration with Belgian NPO Mobile School. The mobile school is an extendable blackboard on wheels that comes with more than 300 educational panels ranging from literacy to street business, to health, hygiene and diversity. From 1,5m length it can develop until 6m length, while it weights 150 kg. The educational panels can be easily attached on the mobile blackboard with plastic screws before being taken to the streets for non-formal and educational sessions. The mobile school targets Roma children who live and work on the streets, without attending schools or have a high risk of dropping out. In addition, the project targets illiterate Roma adults in need of counselling. Living on the street and child labour is unacceptably high among Roma in Greece comparison to the majority population. The high number of school drop-out rates and segregation in education is fuelled by anigypsyst sentiment in society and causes the marginalisation of Roma communities. Through interventions on the streets the project provides education about hygiene, sex etc. with the focus on increasing self-empowerment and skills development. Further, it aims to encourage and prepare Roma children for integration into the broader school community and society. The target group of the proposed program is pre-school and school-age children Roma, young and adult Roma residing in the counties of Drama, Kavala & Xanthi.L.U.D. – H.O.O.H. owns the mobile school and a specially designed van for its transportation and has the necessary know-how and experience, as it has been successfully implementing interventions in Roma camps in the city of Drama for two and a half years. Therefore, the proposed three-year program will be carried out entirely by the organization.
Summary of project results
The "Mobile School Travels" project aimed to eliminate school dropout and illiteracy, and to encourage children''s participation in school communities through interventions in camps using the mobile school tool. Additionally, it aimed to empower and boost the self-esteem of children, provide psychosocial support, and help them acquire basic skills, particularly for those living and working on the streets. Another goal was to raise public awareness on issues of equality, diversity, racism, and human rights through informational and sensitization activities
In 2017 Ladies Union of Drama – House of Open Hospitality acquired mobile school, after forming collaboration with Belgian NPO Mobile School. The mobile school is an extendable blackboard on wheels that comes with more than 300 educational panels ranging from literacy to street business, to health, hygiene and diversity. From 1,5m length it can develop until 6m length, while it weights 150 kg. The educational panels can be easily attached on the mobile blackboard with plastic screws before being taken to the streets for non-formal and educational sessions. The mobile school targeted Roma children that live and work on the streets and fail to attend or drop out of school. Additional target group was adult Roma, who usually are illiterate and need counseling. Through street work (interventions on the streets) they provided education about hygiene, sex education etc. while achieving psychological empowerment and skills development.
Over the project''s fifty-month duration, "Mobile School Travels" reached 1,766 unique Roma children, while 5 children in the Filippos Drama camp attended school lessons almost until the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Furthermore, 3,000 non-Roma children played with the tool, and during this game, they interacted with Roma children, thus achieving the much-desired lifting of stereotypes.
The project in numbers achieved the following:
556 face-to-face interventions with the mobile school in 24 villages and districts of the 3 prefectures
18 online due to covid-19
51 parallel actions on personal hygiene, sex education, substance abuse, on the occasion of World Days and invitations to present the project in schools of the Prefecture of Drama
1,766 unique Roma children benefited (the initial target was 450 unique children)
3.000 non-Roma children played with the tool
5 children in Filippou camp of Drama attended school almost until the end of the year 2023-2024.
Cooperation with the 3 Social Services of the Municipalities of Drama, Chrysoupoli of Kavala and Xanthi, 2 mediators
29 communication actions