“The most important issue to us is education for our children”, says Mr Osman Osmani. “This is underlined in the first clause of our organisation’s statute and we co-operate with politicians, authorities and civil organizations, but also with donors in order to implement it.”
Mr Osmani is the leader of an organization called Iniciativa 6 in the ancient city of Prizren, in the southern part of Kosova/o working for the benefit of the communities of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian people (RAE). The RAE in Kosova are amongst the most marginalized minorities in terms of poverty, discrimination and access to education.
Both the Ashkali and the Egyptians are Albanian speaking minorities, considered to be Albanized Romanies, although not all of them consider themselves to be Roma. The three groups arrived in Kosova at different times, from different places and each with a different history. Still, they have much more that unites them than separates them. Their best chance to be integrated into the larger Kosovar society, and to succeed in economic and social life, lies in the education of their children.
The founders of Iniciativa 6 realized that, and when the organization was established in 2003, they contacted Save the Children for support and cooperation. This was rather unusual, according to the project officer at SCiK, as most organizations in the country have a tendency to be donor driven, that is to say adapt their programmes to the funding available. Iniciativa 6, however, brought forward their own ideas for discussion. Save the Children in Kosova/o and Iniciativa 6 then started to cooperate in order to raise awareness among the RAE community of the importance of children’s right to education. SCiK runs an inclusive education programme that aims to integrate all children – among them RAE children – into mainstream Kosovar education. The project uses primary school education as the crucial starting point for change. It is also a strategic approach given the structural and political barriers linked with the education system in Kosova. Pre-primary school education is outside of the compulsory education system, which makes it a more flexible and less ‘political’ entry point for introducing a new way of working.
Prizren is often described as the most culturally and linguistically diverse town in the country, with substantial interaction between all ethnic groups, so is in a better position than many others to pursue the goal of a school for all. And the joint work of SCiK and Iniciativa 6 has met with success: In year 2006, 79.6% of RAE children were enrolled in school in in Prizren, an increase by over 50% since 2003.
Down-to-earth models
In addition to creating and sharing good practice on inclusive education, based on partnership and capacity building of key stakeholders, the project incorporates strategies for removing the immediate barriers to access to education – like buying educational materials for children in families who cannot afford them, and hiring class assistants to work with children who experience linguistic or other barriers .
Sustainability is a key word, and the project aims for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to replicate the models for inclusion of children at pre-primary and primary level developed through this project. Prizren municipality has developed a municipal action plan for the development of education at the local level. With this example of how a municipality can pursue change for children, Iniciativa 6 and SCiK aim for other municipalities to take similar action and take responsibility for the implementation of children’s right to education.
The practical support to children and families is not confined to providing books, pencils or other necessary school materials for those who cannot afford them. One very important task for the board members of Iniciativa 6 is to keep themselves posted about children, who do not attend their class regularly or tend to drop out of school entirely. If a child does not come to school, say for a week, the board members take immediate action and visit the child’s parents in order to find out why. It might call for more than one visit – sometimes as many as ten or fifteen – to find out why the child does not go to school, and to persuade the parents to send their child back to school. One reason why children drop out – or are taken out – of school is early marriages. Therefore issues like early marriages-social benefits-violence-school must be looked upon and dealt with as a whole. There is now an official strategy in Kosova, to which Iniciativa 6 has contributed, on how to integrate RAE children, which includes health, education, work and other related issues.