At the beginning of 2010 Amalipe begins implementing new projects and programs for improving the quality of education of Roma children, preventing forced marriages and advocacy for forming strong policy for Roma health integration.
“Decreasing the drop-out rate among Roma” is a three-year program supported by America for Bulgaria Foundation. It addresses the high drop-out rate of Roma children in school age. The project activities will further address infrequent attendance of school, low school grades of Roma students, low representation of Roma students in high schools and the low representation of Roma parents in school structures and school life in general. The project is based on the experience Center Amalipe has accumulated during the last seven years and explicitly the experience accumulated with the development of the “Folklore of ethnoi - Roma folklore” SIP program which includes schools from the territory of all Bulgarian regions. The project will reach more that 200 schools. More information could be found at “Projects” section of Center Amalipe web-page at http://amalipe.com/en/?nav=projects&id=21
The project “Preventing forced marriages” is supported within Daphne 2009 Program of the European Commission. It is a common initiative of Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance “AMALIPE” – Bulgaria (main applicant), Liga pro Europa–Romania, and Association for Social Support of Youth ARSIS - Greece (partners). The project aims at establishing and testing in 10 communities a model for preventing the forced marriages and the early marriages among certain traditional Roma communities in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece. The project stresses the work with Roma families for avoiding this practice instead of increasing the administrative punishment that is the prevailing unsuccessful practice at present. More information could be found at “Projects” section of Center Amalipe web-page at http://amalipe.com/en/?nav=projects&id=20
The project “Advocacy for Roma policy in the field of health care” aims at organizing advocacy activities for forming consecutive policy for implementation of the Health Strategy for integration of persons belonging to vulnerable ethnic minorities as well as establishing financial mechanisms for implementing this policy. The project is financed by Open Society Institute – Budapest.You can find more information about the project here
