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Over forty experts and politicians, representatives of leading Roma NGOs, national, regional and local institutions participated in the conference ‘Successful employment and social service practices in the Roma community’ Among them were Mr. Nikola Petkov (Secretariat of  National Council for Cooperation of Ethnic and Integration Issues - NCCEII), Mrs. Elena Gyurova (Ministry of Labor and Social Policy), Mr. Stanislav Gavazov (National Employment Agency), Mrs. Pravda Ignatova (State Agency for Social Assistance), Mr. Georgi Bogdanov (Executive Director of National Network for Children), Mr. Petar Petrov (acting mayor of Byala Slatina municipality) and others. The conference was held on October 27 (Thursday) in Vratsa and was organized by ‘World without borders’ Association - Stara Zagora, Center for Interethnic Dialog and Tolerance ‘AMALIPE’ – Veliko Tarnovo, Roma Academy for Culture and Education - Sliven, ‘New Road’, Association - Hajredin, ‘Roma – Lom’ Foundation and Roma Educational Fund - Budapest with the kind partnership of NCCEII.  

Currently social services do not reach the Roma community.  Although there are over 40 licensed community based services they are rarely applied in Roma community and almost never applied in the most marginalized parts of neighborhoods: this is the conclusion not only of the NGO representatives but also the statement of the institutions.

Therefore it is necessary to test innovative based-in-community services which have a more specific focus on Roma. As an example there were presented the activities of the Centers for Community Development in Byala Slatina, Kameno, Novi Pazar, Peshtera, Pavlikeni and Etropole.

In the sphere of employment among the best practices were pointed the Local Initiative Groups (LIG) established under Axis 4 of the Rural Development Program, ‘The land – source of income’ Program and the Roma Employment Mediator’s Program. Again, the main conclusion was that these examples are just exceptional but not a policy and there is no enough sustainability in their implementation:the number of working Roma mediators is constantly decreasing and at the same time new mediators are not appointed despite the increasing need of such services; including of Roma in Local Initiative Groups still remains a matter of good will and initiative so in many municipalities with a compact Roma population it does not happen.  There is a total lack of a comprehensive model for increasing employment level among Roma.

The question about the name of the document Bulgaria is going to adopt was again raised. All the participants supported the idea of ‘National Strategy for Roma Integration’ without ‘and other vulnerable groups’ in addition. In the preamble of the document must be stated that it indicates not only people that identify themselves as Roma but also to groups defined by the local population in this way (millet, rudary, etc.)

A plenty of suggestions to the Action Plan of the National Strategy for Integration of Roma were given on the conference: appointment of new and more Roma employment mediators (by increasing the scope of ‘Activating inactive people’ Program and HRD OP), approbation of community based services in the Roma neighborhoods (through a specially targeted program ‘Social services foe social inclusion of Roma’) etc.

The proposals made on the conference will be carefully systematized and included in the Action Plan, Mr. Nikolay Kirilov ensured. Mr. Kirilov is the coordinator of sub-group ‘Employment and Social Inclusion’ – part of the Interdepartmental working group preparing the National Roma Integration Strategy.

The forum was part of a cycle of national conferences organized with the support of ‘Roma Initiatives’ Program - OSI-Budapest.