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In Romania we have been working with the
local Roma community for the past 3 years.
Roma are normally harder to reach community
to work with, but we have been able to
establish a level of trust from them. And,
through our Equal Start – Roma Education
programme, achieved fantastic results.
However, we also learned that for the Roma
community educational support on it’s own is
simply not enough. We therefore started to
respond to the many requests we received
from the Roma community to help them with
their everyday dealings with the local
authorities. It might be a simple request
from a Roma mum to use our telephone to call
the electricity company because she has been
cut off, or she may ask us to help her in
typing a letter. Sometimes it is more
serious, such as when a Roma mother
approached us asking for help in dealing
with a corrupt doctor, who was responsible
for dealing with her daughters care, a 6
year old with a serious heart condition. The
Doctor was asking for £300 before he would
continue any more treatment.
Our Roma Advocacy project is all about
empowering the local Roma population. We are
working with them to help resolve the
multiple problems that affect their everyday
living. |
