10th anniversary of Young Roma [Radio HN]

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Monday, 11 May 2015 12:01

NGO Young Roma celebrates ten years of existence. On this occasion, Young Roma organized a ceremony at the local community hall to present its activities that contributed to improving the position of Roma population in Montenegro. A photo exhibition was organized to show the work of this organization in the past decade.

Young Roma registered in May 2005, and later in December that year opened the office that becomes a bridge of dialogue and understanding for the needs of this community. Municipality of Herceg Novi boasts inclusion and retention of Roma children in the education system, said Vice president of the Municipality, Ms Tamara Vujovic.

"The interest of the Municipality is the continuation of  inclusion of Roma into society and fulfillment of obligations under the signed Declaration on the Decade of Roma. Municipality designed and adopted Local Action Plan for Roma Integration for the period from 2009 to 2015. In Herceg Novi all children are covered by preschool and primary education", said Vujovic.

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.

"Together with the Municipality of Herceg Novi and in partnership with the NGO Young Roma, the main aim of the OSCE Mission here is to improve access to local services and promote inclusion of the Roma community in the education system. One example of this is the support of the Mission during the past three years through the work of Roma assistants in primary schools in Herceg Novi. This program has helped to ensure a quality education for Roma children through work on increasing their regular attendance at school as well as increasing the number of children who finish the school year. We will continue with programs to contribute to increasing awareness among parents about the importance of education as well as solving problems of peer bullying in higher grades", said Roberts.

In cooperation with German organization HELP, NGO Young Romas managed to implement the project of women's entrepreneurship, which included training of Roma women for jewelry making, said Klaus Mock from Help. Director of Young Roma Samir Jaha thanked partner organizations and the Municipality for providing them with the support to implement a number of projects.

- I hope that, with the assistance of HELP and the Municipality, we will successfully solve housing problems of Roma population. I believe that we will continue cooperating with the OSCE Mission in improving education and other projects for the Roma population in Herceg Novi. The Roma community had huge problem with personal documentation, and with the help of UNDP, we were able to successfully mitigate this issue. Recently, we received positive news from the European Commission - we passed the first stage for EIDHR grant and we can now fill the full application, and it is a project that will focuses on the strengthening of trade union activism and political participation of Roma. I think we are a good example in Herceg Novi, but we want our activities to be expand as expamle of good practices in other municipalities, said Jaha.

Two years ago, Young Roma opened an office in Podgorica for the purpose of the project Decade Focal Point Montenegro. 

Source: http://www.radiohercegnovi.net/index.php/2169-obiljezana-decenija-rada-nvo-mladi-romi