News

The conference took place on November 7^th, 2013 within the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The aim of the discussion was to present the advance Lithuania has achieved with the implementation of the National Roma Integration Strategy as well as to share experience from other countries and international bodies. It was organized by the Lithuanian Presedency together with the Roma Community Center in Vilnius. Teodora Krumova from Center Amalipe presented the complex program for Reducing the Drop-out rate of Roma children that Center Amalipe has been implementing for more than three years and the overall achievements of Bulgaria in reducing the number of early school leavers.

Apart from presenting the international experience regarding education, employment, media, etc., the conference presented the advance that Lithuania has made regarding its Roma population. Although the number of Roma in Lithuania is very limited compared to countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and so on (at present the official data point 2115 Roma in Lithuania) it is obvious that the issue has been far away from the scope of priorities of Lithuanian government so far: just 5 Roma are presently enrolled in universities, the unemployment rate is close to 80 % and so on. This clearly points that the Council conclusions of May and June 2011 on Roma integration, following the proposal from the European Commission on an EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies was a timely and highly needed commitment to push EU Member States to prioritize their responsibilities regarding Roma on their territory.