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Equal Access
Integrated Education for Romani Children in Bulgaria |
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Partner: Organization Drom
[Equal Access: На български]
Background: At an estimated 10 million people, Roma are the largest, yet most discriminated-against minority in Europe. In Bulgaria, 70 percent of young Roma, (approximately 30,000 children), attend sub-standard schools in segregated Romani neighborhoods. In November 2003, Dimitrina Petrova, then Executive Director of the European Roma Rights Center, described one of the schools:
"The Romani ghetto school was a cold, dirty, and horrible place. The classrooms were extremely run down, with the paint on the walls, floors, ceilings, and windows looking as if it had been exposed to both the deterioration of time and vandalism for at least a decade. The desks and the blackboards were a parody of furniture, all broken and decaying. The only sink, in the corridor of the first floor, had only ice-cold water. The toilets were clogged and overflowing."
Inadequate material conditions and the poor quality of education provided by unmotivated teachers contribute to low attendance rates of Roma pupils. Altogether, they alienate Romani children from schools and perpetuate the cycle of illiteracy, unemployment, and poverty.
In the year 2000, Romani activists from the Bulgarian town of Vidin spearheaded the first initiative for educational desegregation in Europe. Instead of attending ghetto schools in the Roma neighborhood, 100 Romani children enrolled in the town’s mainstream schools. Six years later, more than 3,000 Romani children are bused daily to integrated schools in eight Bulgarian towns. Students in the desegregation programs now go to school regularly, get higher grades, and have better prospects for continuing on to higher education. To learn more about the successes and challenges of educational integration in Bulgaria, click here.
Act Now: Contact Bulgarian educational authorities and urge them to act in support of educational integration of Romani children.
Resources: To learn more about organizations working with and on behalf of Roma in Europe, please click here.
Buy Video: "Equal Access" tells the story of two seventh graders, one Roma and one non-Roma, who met and became friends only when Romani children joined their peers in mainstream schools through the desegregation program. To buy this video, please click here.
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