Roma women, discrimination, and education

Roma women face complex forms of discrimination both within their communities and in society. They are vulnerable to intersectional discrimination in accessing basic services, because of the minority ethnic background and because of their gender. In terms of access to education, the difference between illiteracy rates of women and men over the age of 16, range from 8 in Spain to 12 in Romania and Greece. Also, Roma girls are more likely to drop out of school at an early age, as compared to their boys from their ethnic group, according to FRA (Education: The Situation of Roma, 2014).

Our intervention

Through the PROMA project, we facilitate the integration of Roma women in their local communities through education delivered within practical local programs, by specialized Roma educators, using a tailored approach aiming to decrease school drop-out rates. One of the first steps in this process was the creation of the training content which will empower local formal and non-formal educators. Next, we will focus on the pilot delivery of this capacity building programme for the educators supporting Roma women.

Training of trainers

The first phase of this programme involved the training of the trainers that will deliver the capacity building programme during a 3-day transnational webinar attended by experts from Greece, Germany, Romania, North Macedonia and Spain. The event took place in the period of 22-24 June 2022 and it included presentations, exercises and discussion on 15 selected units from the 4 modules course developed within the project: http://promaproject.eu/proma-course .

During the training, the participants understood the importance of enhancing the learning experience of Roma-women and acquired knowledge and skills, related to:

  • Increasing self-awareness, empowerment, and empathy of Roma women,
  • Understanding the Romani culture and history, handling perceptions and fighting discrimination against Romani women,
  • Mastering new techniques of adult education for increasing attention, improving learning experience and participation in education,
  • Best practices in improving the learning experience for Roma women, that can be used in their work.

Next steps in delivering the capacity building programme

  • Following this training of the trainers, we will focus on selecting 10 formal and non-formal educators working with Roma women at community level, from each project implementation country (Greece, Romania, North Macedonia and Spain)
  • Next, the trainers from each country will deliver Pilot capacity building programme for these 10 formal and non-formal educators working with Roma women at community level.
  • Finally, both trainers and trainees will evaluate the capacity building curriculum, upon its completion, in order to suggest adjustments for its further improvement.

This newsletter has been elaborated within the project PROMA – Promoting the integration of Roma women, funded by Erasmus+, Agreement number 2020-1-RO01-KA204-080214. The content of the newsletter represents the views of the authors only and is their sole responsibility. The newsletter is sent quarterly to the organizations in the databases of the partners in this project.This newsletter was drafted and disseminated in accordance with the GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation- European Regulation 2016/679 on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. In case you do not want to receive this newsletter, please write to us at: office@clnr.ro

Please share this newsletter with your colleagues and partner organizations. Sharing is caring!

Follow us here: Facebook LinkedIn Twitter account: @promaproject