Young Roma announce new projects [Radio Jadran]

Although NGO "Young Roma" exists for 10 years, with a number of projects and good practices, and serious changes in the Roma community are yet to come, says the executive director of the "Young Roma", Samir Jaha.

At the celebration of a decade of work of this NGO in Herceg Novi, he said he expects to continue to address issues of housing, education, personal documentation, improving access to social protection and employment of Roma with the help of partners, the OSCE, UNDP and HELP.

- Our next project will be related to union activism and strengthening the political participation of Roma, said Jaha, noting that Herceg Novi is a positive example in support of the Roma population, but they do not want to stop at that.

There are 300 residents of the Roma population in Herceg Novi, and about 600 of them are at the temporary work abroad. NGO "Young Roma" was registered in May 2005 and on 1 December 2006, at the initiative of the local government and the NGO, the office of the Roma centre was opened, which became a bridge of dialogue and understanding, reminded the Vise-president of the Municipality Dr. Tamara Vujovic:

- Social inclusion of Roma and fulfillment of obligations under the signed Declaration of the Roma Decade is the interest of local government. We designed and adopted the local action plan for the integration of Roma from 2009 to 2015.

All children are covered by preschool and primary education. Project of the NGO "Young Roma" - "Through education to integration" is being implemented since 2013, with the support of the OSCE and the Municipality, in cooperation with elementary schools "Daso Pavičić", "Milan Vukovic" and "Ilija Kisic." The project "Improvement of Roma integration at the local level" was jointly implemented by CEDEM, NGO" Young Roma "and the Municipality of Herceg Novi, and it was financially supported by the Open Society Foundation from Budapest. The main product of this project was the Local housing study. Around 150 members of the Roma community realized their fundamental rights to citizenship and right to vote, informed the vice-president of the municipality Tamara Vujovic.

One of the projects of cooperation with the local community is also Enhancing the employability of Roma women through workshops for making and selling jewelry.

 Recognizing the difficult situation and the conditions in which Roma and Egyptians are living, the OSCE Mission has taken a number of steps and activities to improve this situation. We help them in collecting documents, facilitating access to public services, integration and empowerment through education and support activities office at the local level, said a Senior Political Adviser to the Organization for Security and Cooperation Mission to Montenegro, Alyn Roberts.

We will continue with programs on increasing awareness among parents about the importance of education and solving the problem of peer bullying in higher grades - said Roberts.

Representative of the German humanitarian organization "Help" Klaus Mock congratulated Young Roma on ten years of hard work and dedication to improving the situation of Roma community, praising in particular women's entrepreneurship project, which was implemented with the Organization "Help" and supported by the Embassy of Germany in Montenegro.

Source: http://www.radiojadran.com/index.php/drustvo/4621-mladi-romi-najavljuju-nove-projekte.html