Serbian Presidency of the Roma Decade Organized International Conference Dedicated to Education
Belgrade, 2-3 June 2009

Background info

On June 1-2, 2009 the Serbian Presidency of the Roma Decade organized the international conference “The Right to Education for Every Child: Removing Barriers and Fostering Inclusion for Roma Children” in Belgrade, Serbia.

The Conference did not aim to merely describe the problems that Roma children are facing. In fact, there is already broad consensus on the nature of the barriers that must be overcome and most participants recognize that segregation in education is not only adverse for Roma children but for all children. Rather, the discussions focused on how to make progress in critical areas. Specifically, participants identified:
-what they know and what they do not know about the strategies that work in promoting inclusive education,
-the tactics for accelerating the successful approaches and
- the various ways to make action happen on a broad enough scale such that the effects will make a tangible difference. 
Conference participants have determined a common set of principles that form the basis of participants' commitment to remove barriers and foster inclusion:

-Recognition and respect for the rights of each and every child, including the belief that all children are entitled to develop to their full potential.
-Accountability from the countries in creating equal access to inclusive, quality education, which meets the needs of all children in an integrated setting.
-A growing understanding that the early years of child’s life are critical for later development; particularly realizing the need to target children aged 0-3 years through the rapid expansion of pre-schools and support services for the parents, especially within disadvantaged population groups.
-Increased consultation with and active involvement from the Roma community, parents and children themselves.
-The need to monitor discrimination, including educational segregation through appropriate mechanisms that ensure discrimination is challenged and addressed. 
-Recognition of the fact that a substantial collection of experiences that addresses education now exists in each of the Decade countries; thus the time for more ‘pilot projects’ has passed. What is now needed is systemic change and making sure that education systems become much more responsive to the needs of diverse children.  

Finally, participants agreed upon four actions: (1) Starting early; (2) Ending segregation in Education; (3) Ensuring supportive classrooms; and (4) Public Financing of inclusive education.
FINAL CONFERENCE REPORT

International Conference on Scholarship programs
                    11-12 December 2008

An international conference on scholarship was organized by Roma Education Fund (REF) and Resource Center for Roma Communities Foundation (RCRC), in Romania, Cluj Napoca in 11-12 Dec 2008

The goal of the meeting was to analyze successes and difficulties in managing a complex scholarship program involving mentoring, to disseminate knowledge of Roma Scholarship programs among the Conference’ participants, who were all REF grantees, and to identifying the possibilities of scaling up the program into a national policy.From five countries …. Organizations participated. Researcher, government representatives also contributed to the meeting.

Outcomes of the meeting are:
 List of lessons learnt in implementing Scholarship programs
 Examples of good practice in providing scholarship to Roma students
 Examples of good practice in handling difficult cases
 A list of possibilities for scaling up the scholarship program into a national policy
 A policy note about the necessity of scholarship program
 Commitments of the stakeholders on accessing Structural Funds
 Working group on scholarships
 A list of monitoring and evaluation instruments for scholarship programs

The organizers considered the event as a knowledge transfer working conference. RCRC, supported by a grant from REF, has been implementing a scholarships program for high school students for two years. RCRC and REF are therefore planning this conference as an international working meeting with countries that have been implementing or are planning to implement similar scholarship programs. The positive impact of these initiatives is obvious in all countries where scholarship programs are running and therefore was necessary to explore ways of scaling up such initiatives. The event was an opportunity for sharing of experience and good practice, exchanging monitoring and evaluation instruments, and creating a working group on scholarships. We shared experiences of additional support mechanisms, like tutoring, mentoring, summer camps, weekend clubs, and other ideas for improving the achievements of the supported students.
There was a vivid discussion about paying back; how grantees can give back to the community the support they had received from REF, how can or should they participate in Roma movement.   

The event was structured more like an information and knowledge transfer workshop; therefore we proposed round table type and group working meetings carefully moderated discussions for each block.
The major ideas of each session / topic (e.g. grantee selection, support for grantees, ways of scaling up, monitoring and evaluation, Roma identity component etc.) was recorded and displayed in the conference room for additions outside of the sessions. The conclusions / outcomes of each session were shared by the moderators.