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25.11.2014Open Days in Jobs Office

A team of coordinators and volunteers from Amalipe Center join the "Open Days" organized by the Employment Office - Veliko Tarnovo. Courtesy of hosts, attendees were familiar with the work of the office services can be obtained, the European network EURES, opportunities for retraining and continuing education. Representatives from Amalipe Center and hosts agreed on future cooperation aimed at increasing the awareness of the target groups with which the center works in terms of employment opportunities.

25.11.2014Filling the gap: bringing Roma health issues higher in the Public Health agenda

 

Filling the gap: bringing Roma health issues higher in the Public Health agenda

Community-Based Monitoring Approach as One of the Tools for Overcoming Health Inequalities.

The 7th annual conference of the European Public Health Association

Glasgow, 19 – 22 November 2014


 

The 7th European Public Health conference held in Glasgow, 19 – 22 November 2014 became again the biggest annual forum of experts and practitioners from various countries in the field of public health. It brought together more than 1400 participants from 72 countries all over the world and 10 international institutions like the European Commission, WHO, EUPHA, etc. They exchanged knowledge, shared experience, and promoted discussions on the theme “Mind the Gap – reducing inequalities in health and healthcare in Europe.”

One of the sub-themes of the high-level conference was again “Marginalized groups: migrant and ethnic minority health” within which the Roma health issue was included. Compared to previous years it was much broader covered being present in all sessions of the track. Moreover, the specific Roma-oriented sessions organized by the Public Health Program of the Open Society Foundations brought much more experts who have broader interest in migrant and minority health instead of the “usual suspects” we are used to meet at these meetings. This clearly shows that the Roma topic is getting higher in the agenda of Public Health which has resulted in one of the suggestions during the meeting of the minority and migrant health section of EUPHA the following activities and conferences to have much more clearer focus on Roma.

During the conference Bulgaria was presented by only two experts: Pepa Karadzhova, student of the Roma Health Scholarship Program who presented a joint poster with M.Kamburova, MD on the “Analysis of the impact of prematurity on demand for health and social services of infants in the town of Pleven, Bulgaria” and Teodora Krumova from Center Amalipe, who presented The impact of community monitoring on the improvement of Romani women health and access to healthcare (Bulgaria)”. The latter presented the community-based monitoring approach as a tool to strengthen the advocacy which would give the local communities and especially women the opportunity to participate in the local policies and the processes of local-level management, improving the Roma health services and status in a long-term plan.

The model follows the methodology of community monitoring through the so called ‘communityinquiry, including periodical (twice in the year) consultation with the local communities about the health services they receive and their quality. The inquiry is done and processed by volunteers from the community itself supplemented with two more elements. The first one is the community mobilization and building groups of activists in the community which precedes the ‘community injury’. During the recent years, the program has achieved its goal to create, test, and evaluate a mechanism for mobilizing the local community. The second element is the advocacy activities before the local and regional health institutions as well as community campaigns for improving the health awareness. All activities are accompanied by the work of youth and female groups which is an important part both of the community mobilization and the advocacy.

Apart from the concrete examples provided for improving the access and quality of the healthcare services, a significant illustration of the success of the method is that the local authorities have already recognized it as an efficient one and have shown willingness to further support it (including direct financial support). The Municipality of Pavlikeni for example takes over since November 2014 the salaries of the community moderators. Teodora Krumova pointed out that the method is very successful and easily applicable in other communities as well and might be the method that could be used for filling the health gap regarding other migrant and minority communities in Member States which attracted the interest of many of the participants in the session.

Some of the other points raised during the Roma-related sessions were how we could target Roma and who should be identified and approached as Roma in activities for overcoming health inequality gap. Another conclusion was that activities in the field should go further than pure research and Universities and research centers have a joint responsibilities together with civil society organizations to upgrade research with activities and use them for shaping and influencing the opinion of policy making; the change is possible, it is out there but only combining our efforts would help us to make it happen faster rather than “reinventing the wheel” – Teodora Krumova pointed in one of her interventions.

The raised interest towards having Roma health issues higher in the agenda was clearly underlined during the closing plenary session on November 22 when one of the two speeches was exactly on “Roma Health in Europe: Political Diagnosis, Community Care” by Marine Buissonniere, Director of the Open Society Public Health Program. Her presentation came to a response to the questions of some of the researchers raised during the conference what the results of the work so far in the field of Roma health are and how all these efforts have influenced the life of local communities and the way of thinking of politicians. The example she pointed were the results from the community based monitoring approach implemented by Center Amalipe in several Roma communities in Bulgaria: both in regard to filling the gap between communities and institutions and improving the quality of healthcare services from one side, and influencing local policies from another.


        

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