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Description
On the short term, the project aims at raising the awareness of the Roma marginalised community on the problems they face and the identifications of solutions. On the medium term, by increasing the access and quality of sectorial or integrated services provided to Roma in the field of social assistance, education, employment, health, housing, the project aims to contribute to increasing the community welfare, the social-professional integration of the target group, the degree of awareness of the importance of having a job and support children to attend school.
In the long term, the citizens of the Slobozia Bradului Commune will cease to be a marginalised group and will be integrated from the social and professional points of view.
The project is addressed to 1200 Roma persons and 200 members belonging to the majority population who will benefit from integrated services, 500 Roma persons and 200 members belonging to the majority population who will benefit from empowerment measures, as well as 15 specialists/volunteers and 100 Roma experts and leaders who will be trained.
The objectives of the project are:
- To increase the access and the quality of sectorial or integrated services for 1200 Roma persons and 200 members belonging to the majority population in the fields of social assistance, education, employment, health, housing.
- To empower 500 Roma and 200 non-Roma persons.
- To train 100 experts and volunteers and 15 specialists / volunteers
- To fights against any discrimination of Roma by specific actions implemented among 500 Roma persons.
Summary of project results
The project took place in the locality of Slobozia Bradului, where there are several marginalized communities in terms of the validation of human capital, workforce, and housing indicators. The socio-material situation leads to the absence of a decent standard of living.
From a human capital perspective, the three areas include 1,126 households and 4,817 people. Among individuals aged 16 to 64, approximately 97% are unemployed despite being capable of working, and the majority of the population has not even completed middle school. Around 64% of the population does not have official documents for their personal housing.
In marginalized areas, living conditions are far from decent. Homes are overcrowded, as multiple families live in a single household, each with a large number of children (ranging from 2 to 8). Most of these houses are in poor condition, built from adobe and wattle-and-daub, with roofs on the verge of collapse.
In the Roma community, boys attend school more frequently than girls, who are often withdrawn at a much younger age. After finishing their education, girls have no alternative but to start families and become mothers—pursuing a career is not an option for them.
Additionally, the absence of functional integrated community centers results in a lack of psychological support and an insufficient number of school mediators compared to the large number of children in marginalized areas. The two available health mediators are unable to meet the needs of an entire locality, which has approximately 7,050 people. As a result, young people do not have access to sufficient knowledge about health education, disease prevention, or hygiene. They have also not received proper sexual education, as evidenced by the extremely high number of children in young families.
The project addressed the most pressing issues in the communities of Slobozia Bradului and Grebănu: lack of education, poor housing conditions, lack of material resources, early school dropout, and inadequate health education. The target group consisted of Roma individuals from the two localities, among whom:
- 153 people received assistance in obtaining identity documents and birth certificates;
- 80 people benefited from educational counseling;
- 48 people received employment services, including participation in vocational training courses;
- 708 people received healthcare services, including continuous health monitoring;
- 233 people benefited from housing services aimed at improving living conditions;
- 236 people received integrated services.
The project also included a hard infrastructure component, which involved housing rehabilitation, connection to the water supply network, and the establishment of a dental clinic.
The hard infrastructure measures had a direct and sustainable impact on the target groups. The rehabilitation of personal housing and connection to the water supply system significantly improved the beneficiaries'' quality of life. Additionally, the newly established dental clinic will continue to provide services to the residents of Slobozia Bradului.