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Since January 2010 Center Amalipe has been implementing the program "Reducing the drop-out rate of Roma children", supported by America for Bulgaria Foundation. The focus of the initiative is the Student: our goal is to make school a place for every child, to lead the battle for any student in danger of dropping out and to help for better realization of each child in school. Furthermore, capacitating the schools to achieve it is a key approach: in different ways we strengthen the capacity of the schools and their teams to work successfully with children, parents and local communities, and in this way to reduce school dropout to a minimum. 
Integral part of our approach is the paradigm of interculturalism: the balance between keeping the ethnic identity and ethno-cultural diversity from one side and increasing awareness of belonging to a unified Bulgarian nation; turning acquaintance of different traditions and ethno-cultural world-views into a basis of modern and quality education. 

Therefore our principles are: 

• Each student can be a winner: no students is a "dud" student, everyone is good at something and the task of the educator is to find exactly that little thing the student is good at;
• Setting high expectations: we need to place high expectations and constantly increasingly them for the students in order to foster them to achieve better results and develop themselves;
• School may be attractive to any child: this entails children, their parents and the local community from which they are part, to recognize the school as "their" institution; 
• School may be a well-functioning system: a well-organized school is the best guarantee for attracting, preserving and fostering students to achieve success.
• The organization of various classes, extracurricular activities are opportunity for developing students' abilities while having fun. Introducing various forms parents' participation and participation of representatives of the local community in the learning process as well as forms of self-organization and activating the students is a means of engaging the school with the life of the local communities and ultimately a guarantee of improving the quality of education. 

The schools are leading in the selection and organization of activities to keep children in school. Under the program, we assist them in preparing and implementing their school programs for dropout prevention. Within these programs we support 34 schools included in the first year of the project to make several types of activities: 

• Implementation of Roma culture and folklore classes and other forms of intercultural education: all the schools introduced these classed from the beginning of the year and they have led to unexpected, even for us, result for reducing the dropping-out. For example, in the school in Vidrare unexcused absences have decreased by half compared with the previous year; 
• Establishment of an active school board (including Roma parents in it): So far such have been established in the schools "Vasil Levski" v.Karadzhovo, High School "Sv.Paisiy Hilendarski" c.Varbitsa, PS "Hristo Smirnenski" c. Byala Slatina, PS "St, Kliment Ohridski" v.Tishevitsa, PS "GS Rakovski "v.Bolyartsi, PS" Hristo Botev "v.Banitsa, School" St. Cyril and Methodius "c. Vratsa, PS "Hristo Botev" v.Rosen; 
• Creating parent's club and regular meetings of the club disucussing the school life of children and work on cases of children at risk of dropping out. Parental clubs have been formed in: School "Hristo Botev" v.Galiche, PS "George Benkovski" v.Belomortsi, school "Vasil Levski" v.Vidrare. An important objective of all these is to increase the capacity and parent community self-organization.
• Creating a School Parliament / Student Council (with children of various ethnic background): School Parliament is an independent self-governing voluntary organization. The main objectives of this activity are making students more active and involving them in activities which they initiate and implement. SP have been created in: PS "Georgi Benkovski" v.Belomortsi, PS "GS Rakovski" v. Goliamo Novo, PS "GS Rakovski v.Bolyartsi, PS" Hristo Botev "v.Rosen, PS" Vasil Drumev "v.Orlyak, school" Ivan Vazov " c.Varshets, Junior High Schools "Academic Daki Yordanov" c.Omurtag, School "St.Paisi Hilendarski" c.Varbitsa, PS "Hristo Botev" c. Dunavtsi. 
• Teacher trainings: every month teachers with experience in all mentioned above make practical trainings for colleagues from the pilot schools how to implement these elements and make an attractive school environment; they make discussions, share successful and unsuccessful practices. This leads to gradual change in attitudes and practices. 

The hard work in these areas is already leading to real results - by introducing the elements described above the number of dropout childrens, absenteeism and demonstration of disinterest has significantly decreased. Pride for us is the fact that in the first term the dropout rate at the schools involved in the program has decreased to 0.5% (in the previous year it was 7%!). Our efforts will continue during the second term to make the changes in all the schools more visible.