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During four consecutive days (November 1-4), community moderators from three Balkan countries – Bulgaria, Romania and Greece - shared their so far work-experiences and exchanged ideas seeking cooperative solutions for various cases to deal with the specific problems of Roma children, women and families. The training was held in Complex “Bryasta” – only seven km far from the old capital of Bulgaria – Veliko Tarnovo. The participants in the meeting were representatives of eight Centers for community development – six of them situated in Bulgaria, one – in Romania and 1 in Greece. All the centers are opened under “Promotion of fieldwork in traditional and marginalized groups of the Roma community” Project financed by the European Commission and realized by Center Amalipe – Bulgaria, Pro Europa – Romania and Arsis – Greece.

During the meeting the community moderators presented the activities done in each center since its opening till present. Each center for community development has two job places taken by two community moderators whose main task is to assist for activating and mobilizing the development of the local social capital through organizing and implementing various local activities.  Center’s role is to activate the resources and the capacity of the Roma community willing modernization and addressing specific problems such as dropouts from school, early marriages and early pregnancy, health education etc. During the training the centers worked on planning their work based on the field research they have done and the specific results they have: identified community needs, problems and solutions. Since there existing the community development centers have realized a lot of local and national campaigns.  Here are just few of them:

 - “Let’s get in class” campaign was held all over Bulgaria and its aim was to make as many Roma children to get in the class rooms on September 15 – beginning of the school year in Bulgaria;

 - On October 1 was held Roma Pride - an international campaign. In Bulgaria it was held under the slogan: “I have a dream: to learn and live together”

 - “I want to be a university student” and “Back to school” campaigns promoting life-long learning education;

The community moderators shared that on a local level they have built very good relationships with the local authorities. For example:

-         As a consequence of the identified needs of the local Roma community in Kameno, the Mayor of Kameno has taken concrete actions for improving the streets in the Roma neighborhood;

-         The moderators from Peshtera and Etropole in partnerships with the local schools have managed to create Parent’s clubs which main task is to attract and involve parents in the school life through their participation in solving problems with children at risk of dropping out. The role of Parent’s club is also to create an active relationship between the school and the community;

-         In Novi Pazar two children who has dropped out of school in the past are back to school again because the efforts of the community moderators;

During the joint training their experience shared also the community moderators from Greece and Romania. In the both countries the work with Roma communities is most concentrated on early marriages and early parenthoods. The moderators work with focus groups of women and children which allows them to know better the problems of the community.

During the meeting the representatives of all the community centers has worked on creating a strategically plan with activities till the end of the project – January 2013. There have been made also concrete plans with activities for the following two months for each of the centers. Participant in the training also had a session about the work with volunteers: how to attract them, make them involve and motivate them more.

In addition, on this meeting participants were also representatives of the monitoring NGO’s in the project: “World without borders” – Stara Zagora; “New Road” – Hayredin, “The faithful steward” – Burgas and Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance “Amalipe”.