News

Annual meeting of Roma Health Scholarship Program (RHSP) partners took place in Budapest on 17-18 of March, 2011. The main purpose of that annual event is taking stock of achievements and looking ahead to challenges and perspectives.

The Roma Health Scholarship Program conducted by the Roma Education Fund (REF) based in Hungary and Open Society Institute (OSI) has been expanding in the past few years. In the beginning it was only Romania working on the program, then Bulgaria joined and now Serbia and Macedonia are part of the program that supports students of Roma background who study at medical universities and colleges.

Bulgaria was represented by organizations working on the four different components of the Program - Open Society Institute - Sofia (Scholarship component), Center Amalipe (Advocacy component), Diverse and Equal Association (Mentorship component) and Pro Media (Media component).

The Annual meeting helps all partners from Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Macedonia stay on the same page, to exchange experiences and help the new countries in the program develop strategies for sustainability of the Scholarship Program.

In one of the working sessions the participants discussed what are the options for reaching a stage of a sustainable program since the Roma Education Fund and Open Society Institute will support the unique initiative until 2011 - 2012 academic year. All country representatives agreed on the very few possible options for sustainability - either support from the national governments (Ministries of Education, Health and Labour and Social policy) or applying for external grants such as European Structural Funds (ESF) or Swiss cooperation. On that matter countries that have experience on working with ESF shared their concern on the complicated bureaucratic procedures and the payment delays that evolve. In any case, the common idea is to find a way to provide funding for the scholarship program and its integrant components which fulfill the idea of ​​educating a new generation of health professionals who would be advocates for better healthcare in their community.

On behalf of Center Amalipe its Chairman Deyan Kolev presented the options for applying for ESF and what would be the intermediate bodies to conduct the Program. Mr. Kolev also shared the possibilities that the Swiss cooperation give, as he reported the achievements that the Bulgarian partners have in involving state institutions in order to reach sustainability of the Roma Health Scholarship Program. Mr. Kolev shared with the international partners the challenges and successes that Center Amalipe has in organizing and conducting Summer advocacy training camp for the scholars and how it changes the student's perspectives on the Roma history and culture!

On another topic of the Annual tacking stock of achievements meeting Mrs. Veska Karastoyanova - National Program Coordinator for Bulgaria (OSI) spoke on the Scholarship component. Mrs. Juliana Toncheva - ProMedia Bulgaria spoke on how can we best use media to promote and support RHSP as she presented the achievements of the Bulgarian partners. Mr. Radostin Manov representing Diverse and Equal Association that conducts the Mentorship component in Bulgaria presented his work with the mentors and how they supports student's academic achievements.

In the second day of the meeting Mrs. Denitsa Sacheva - consultant to the Roma health program in Bulgaria presented highlights of her extensive evaluation report on what are the successes, challenges and lessons learnt in the Scholarship in Bulgaria and its two years of history. The full report will be published soon.