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Description
The project "NETWORK TO COMBAT DISCRIMINATION FOR VULNERABLE GROUPS", proposed by Roma Just, is necessary to address the perspective of defending human rights, for persons belonging to the Roma minority, a highly discriminated community in Romania, in a social environment in which litigation and advocacy do not come to the fore. The project will develop a Community tool to prevent and combat all forms of discrimination, by developing a 30-member network of local human rights observers. Another objective is to combat and prevent discrimination in education, labor market integration, access to health services, housing and human dignity, the abuse of law enforcement officials, and discriminatory, racist or hate speech, through advocacy and litigation. The project will stimulate increased access to justice for members of the Roma community, by facilitating legal assistance and representation for victims of ethnic discrimination, abuse or violation of rights, in at least 15 cases. An analysis of Roma discrimination, the effectiveness of the anti-discrimination framework and Roma access to justice will be carried out through a study. It will ensure the organization of the network of observers that will be involved at local level in order to identify and solve all cases of ethnic discrimination in terms of education, access to housing, integration into the labor market, access to medical services and other forms of discrimination. aimed at the Roma population and their training in order to strengthen the capacity of Roma communities to defend themselves. At the same time, a guide of good practices will be developed regarding the right to equal treatment regardless of the social category / ethnic minority of the citizen''s origin
Summary of project results
The challenges of the project were the trust in NGOs in general that the community has recently, but by involving people from the regional centers who knew the community closely and worked with it for more than 5 years, they managed to overcome this obstacle in a proportion of over 70% and the remaining 30% have lost their trust in NGOs due to the fact that solving some problems does not come very quickly in time, and they not understanding that the human and financial resources of NGOs are limited. The problem of access to justice was addressed, especially in two large fields, education and housing, trying to have an impact at the national level, but with a focus on 5 regions.
At the project level, there were conferences to launch and close the project, as well as regional debates. During the regional debates, new cases were identified. Following the trip to the Roma communities, the lawyers prepared the necessary documents to be able to move forward. At the organizational level, were developed an organizational strategy, and the cases contributed to the preparation of a research report, as well as to a studio documenting the situation of respect for human rights.
A network of 30 people was created, of which 25 were volunteers and 5 were employed within the project, as regional coordinators. Together with the members of the network, the cases that were the subject of summons requests/petitions were identified. 750 people were consulted and 1200 were legally reconciled. The practical approach of involving the target group and the beneficiaries in the project was through the establishment of the 5 regional centers. Association were able to identify the shortcomings in accessing education and housing rights and these are reflected in questionnaires and counseling sheets, but also in real actions before the CNCD or the court.