ROMEDIN – Education for social justice and inclusion (Socio-educational services for Roma inclusion) was implemented in Cluj-Napoca, funded through the 2009-2014 SEE Grants, NGO Fund in Romania, by Desire Foundation for Social Reflection and Openness in partnership with ARTEMIS – Women’s Association against Violence, TRANZIT Foundation, Community Association of Roma from Coastei, the Social Work Department of the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work at Babeș-Bolyai, the Cluj County School Inspectorate and Cluj-Napoca Municipality. The project unfolds between 15 September 2014 and 14 March 2016. ROMEDIN unfolded through six separate but interconnected activities presented in this summary.
The project acted on the behalf of people living in a marginalized urban area of Cluj-Napoca. It offered services to children that assured their participation on quality formal and non-formal education, but as well as to families with difficulties in order to avoid school abandonment. Moreover, the project operated on the pre-university educational system for developing a network of inclusive schools dedicated to desegregation, inclusive education and education for human rights and social justice.
During the project implementation period, the project team and participants were actively involved into the public life of the city in accordance with the principles of the project promoter, Foundation Desire.
The relatively low level of salaries paid to the project contributors made it possible to enjoy the participation of more than 60 specialists on the project team. Among them, besides the management team, school teachers and inspectors, researchers, psychologists and social workers, artists and community facilitators, who jointly acted together, day-by-day during 10 months from Monday to Saturday to directly serve the educational interests of participant children and youngsters.
Moreover, within other activities lasting for 12 months, our team members worked together on a regular bases with the parents and teachers of these children, and as well as with representatives of public institutions in order to initiate changes in the institutional mechanisms that support the school enrollment and participation of children from vulnerable social categories under the risk of extreme poverty, living in disadvantaged and marginalized urban areas. Last, but not least, by the means of different promotion activities we reached even more indirect beneficiaries than the 2000 planned in our project proposal.