News

Deputy-minister on education Svetlana Lomeva, director of European funds directorate within Ministry of education Tzvetana Gerdjikova, representatives of Roma NGOs, schools and municipalities took part in the National meeting “The structural funds and Roma educational integration”. It was organized on November 7 and 8 in Veliko Turnovo by Center Amalipe and Open Society Institute – Sofia within PLATFORM project.
Bulgaria is the country with one of the highest percentage of dropouts of school, only Romania is worse, according to a report of the World Bank, explained Deputy Minister Lomeva. The measures undertaken do not provide the necessary results and serious changes are needed. For example the way the Center for Educational Integration functions should be changed as well as certain other initiatives of Ministry of Education. Five priorities are envisaged in the program of Ministry of Education for the next 4 years and educational integration of minority children is one of them. In her presentation Deputy Minister Lomeva pointed also that affirmative action is necessary in order to allow the minority to reach the educational level of majority citizens but these positive steps should not be perceived as “social benefits” and should not violate human rights.
The participants discussed the call for proposals “Educational integration of children and students from the ethnic minorities in the school system” announced within Human Resources Development Operational Program. They put the accent on the problems Roma educational integration met and how they could be managed through educational projects: what types of projects are necessary, what are the stages of application and financing, etc. The participants were got familiar with the opportunity to receive free consultative help for preparing projects  provided by OSI – Sofia and Center Amalipe within PLATFORM project.
The participants agreed that the announced call for proposals is a good opportunity but it is backed up with small amount of financing and many qualified projects will not be financed. They proposed doubling the budget of the call; Deyan Kolev as member of the Monitoring Committee of Human Resources Development OP elected by the group of Roma NGOs will present this suggestion during the next session of the Committee on November 11. Deputy Minister Lomove agreed with the argument and express her support for doubling the budget of the call.

The project “PLATFORM for creating projects for Roma integration” is a initiative financed by Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative (LGI) at Open Society Institute – Budapest implemented by a Consortium with leading organization Open Society Institute – Sofia and partners Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance “Amalipe”, the National Association of Roma in Public Administration and Resource Center for Decentralization and Municipal Development. The overall project objective is to support NGOs, municipalities and other institutions to prepare projects for Roma integration with good quality in order to receive financing for these projects by European structural funds and programs financed by the state budget. Until now more than 30 project ideas are consulted and 8 of them (for 2 million BGN) were approved within different operational programs. It is expected that they number will be doubled before the end of 2009.