Phase 2 of the Afterschool project (2 year proposal) – Community Cohesion.

In 2010 the Romanian Government made the decision to enforce the school integration of both Romanian and Roma Children. This lead to a community uproar and protests that the Roma Gypsy children had to walk through. Many Romanian parent protestors were against the Roma children joining the local school. As a result, many parents that could afford to, took their children out of the local school and sent them to a private school as they did not want their children mixing with the Roma gypsies.

In 2016 the project objectives were focused on getting the Roma children to stay and continue in mainstream school as the drop rate was very high due to these prejudices.  This action also bridged the gap in their education by helping them to build confidence to function in mainstream society.

Purpose of grant:  For 2017 the decision has been made to move the afterschool project to take place in the mainstream school for 2 sessions per week and the 3^rdsession (To be focused holistically) to take place in the Roma village in Lazareni, making it a different working model from before, this will include the recruitment of extra qualified teachers.

There will be 4 teachers that have been identified (these are employed staff currently working for the school) to run 2 x 2 hour sessions each week, this will continue to help with educational attainment as it has been identified that these teachers will be well placed to have a better understanding of the level each child is working towards.

The 3^rd 2 hour session will be ran from the village in Lazareni this will be a more focused holistic creative approached session, where Caleb will continue to focus on the child’s self worth, self esteem and healthy thinking patterns through art, music, craft, poetry. The teachers to run this session are the 2 Kindergarten teachers that work currently with the Roma Gypsies and taught them for the afterschool programme in 2016.

These sessions will be mixed with Roma and Romanian children to continue to develop integration to bring community cohesion. (Next phase development, last year the project was focused towards Roma Gypsies).

The project gives both Roma and poor Romanian children the opportunity to access all these sessions, so no child is isolated and are given the opportunity for extra tuition if need be.

The total number of children that will be funded through the program is 60 and they will be between the ages of 7- 16 years old. To enhance educational development, each child  will be given a meal before they start each session,  whether the parents  pay for the session or it is state  funded through the project.  This will continue to break down the barriers within the community. This will also be the same principle for the incentive and school supplies, as we want to make this available for all to access it.

One of these exit plan strategies is to develop the parents predominantly the mothers in the Roma village to teach their own children, so that eventually aafterschool programme is no longer needed or required as the parents will be equipped to help their own children succeed.