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09.10.2014How Norwegian financial mechanism in Bulgaria supports Roma integration?

 

The Ministry of Health had just signed contract with selected implementer in the small grant scheme for supporting Roma students in Medical Universities. In the middle of November a contest would be announced and in the Middle of December 130 approved candidates would sign contracts. The Ministry of Culture would publish the results of the call for proposals in the modern culture area (inc. Roma culture popularization) until 19th of November. The Ministry of Education starts training educational mediators and would seek a solution to fund their appointments.

These and other news were stated during the meeting on Roma Inclusion, held by the Council of Ministers and the Norwegian Embassy on the 7th of October. It was also presented the progress made ​​in implementing the requirement 10%   of the funding in 6 priority areas from the Norwegian financial mechanism, to be used in Roma integration. 

The meeting was co-chaired by the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway H.E. Guro Katharina Vikor and a representative of the National Focal Point Garo Marukyan. High standing representatives from the Financial mechanism office in Brussels, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Embassy of Ireland in Brussels, the Council of Ministers, attended the meeting, so were the program operators of several priority areas: Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Open Society Institute.

The meeting was also attended by representatives of two Roma organizations implementing projects to NGO fund of the Norwegian programme  - Association LARGO - Kyustendil and CIEDT "Amalipe".

 

In her welcome speech to the participants H.E. Guro Katharina Vikor emphasized the importance of the requirement to use 10% of the funds under the Financial Mechanism for Roma integration and also that Kingdom of Norway would persist on this requirement in the upcoming period. Mrs Agota Kovac, Senior Sector Officer in Roma Inclusion in Financial Mechanism Office in Brussels appended that it is of great importance to governments of the European Economic Area to observe a real progress and successful results on the Roma issues.

In the following discussion each program director presented their achievements in  fulfilling the requirement for Roma participation and the intermediate results. Agota Kovac and Deyan Kolev addressed additional questions and comments to the institutions.

 Ivan Modev, General  Directorate of  "Structural Funds" in the Ministry of Education presented the four activities regarding the priority area "Children and youth at risk" and emphasizing the newly established youth centers, employing skilled professionals, youth coordinators and mediators.  There will be an upcoming training for Roma school mediators which would be realized together with Council of Europe. Printing of educational materials both in Bulgarian and Roma language is envisaged. It  became clear that funding the mediators is not envisaged in the program and the funds would be in demand of the governmental budget. Deyan Kolev emphasized on the need of a special funds that schools should receive outside the delegated school budget otherwise the trained mediators would never be able to start working. He claimed the need to working on the subject of employing qualified teachers from Roma origin.

“Today we signed a contract with the selected contractor, after a public procurement regarding the Grant Scheme for supporting Roma students studying medicine”, Mariana Vasileva, Director of “International projects” in the Ministry of Health, pointed out. “This is how the Roma Health Scholarship Programe would be proceeded”, being implemented  to this stage due to  the 5 years financial support of the Open Society Institute and the Roma Educational Fund. In this and the following scholar years, another 130 Roma students would be supported with scholarship, advocacy training and mentoring. Mrs Vasileva stated that the program would start with delays which would cause inconvenience for the students  who have to pay their fees on their own for the first semester. But till the middle of November the contest for scholarship will be held and till the middle of December, the selected students will receive funds for their semester fees after signing contracts. Therefore students that have already paid, would have their fees reimbursed, answered Mrs Vesileva in response to the inquiry of Dimitar Dimitrov from Open Society Institute.

The Ministry of Culture presented the previously announced in Feb 2014 call for proposals regarding the popularization of modern culture and digitization of cultural heritage, in which the requirement is 10% of the approved projects to be Roma related. “The results are still in delay and evaluation of submitted projects proceeds, but the results should be published until 19th of November”, Petar Markov from the Ministry of Culture stated.

Elitsa Markova from the Open Society Institute presented the Fund for Support of  NGO.

“The projects from the first contest are already implementing, contracts with the approved from the second contest are being signed and a third one is announced”, stated Mrs Markova. Over one third of the approved projects are from Roma organizations or Roma related which is not done in a quota basis, but because of their high quality and presentation.

Stanimir Kiskinov, representative of the Association LARGO, presented a project for founding a Roma Public Council in Kyustendil, sponsored by NGO fund. Deyan Kolev presented a co-project from CIEDT Amalipe, World Without Borders Association, “New way” Association, and “Faithful Guardian” Foundation for ensuring civil society participation in preparing the new Municipal Roma Integration Plans and the new operational programs. He emphasized the importance of funding for advocacy projects: the possibility that the Norwegian Financial Mechanism provides and the European Structural Funds ignore. European Social Fund finances many activities of NGOs, but they are providing services rather than civil activities, Kolev said and explained that the only possibility of EU funding for civil society projects is for Operational Programme "Good Governance".  Unfortunately, the allocated resource is minimal, which is a precondition for political pressure and corruption, said Kolev. He urged the Norwegian Financial Mechanism to extend its support to NGO Fund and Roma integration in the next programming period starting only after 2 years.

EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism channel the support from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway for the development and  reforms in Bulgaria. The support is provided on Memorandum for Agreement basics between the countries – donors and Bulgaria (signed on 17.06.2011)  and the granted funds are managed by programme operators which are Bulgarian institutions (Ministry of Health , etc).  For the period 2009 - 2014, the two mechanisms expect  at least 10% of allocated funds to be used for initiatives targeting  Roma , in the six priority areas. These priorities are Children and youths at risk, Health issues, Women equal rights, Cultural Heritage, Scholarship and NPO funds.

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