With 10 to 12 million members, Roma are the biggest ethnic minority in Europe. A relevant reason for their permanent discrimination is their low education level. Due to that the disadvantages are especially obvious in the education sector. A real segregation exists. Of course, actual education deficits, discrimination, prejudices and clichés of the majority population as well as missing motivation, self-chosen isolation and the lack of self-knowledge of Roma are responsible for their limited access to education and employment. A large threshold for the access to education and employment, however, is the missing prove of their informally and non-formally acquired competences. Therefore, our project focuses on the recording, assessment and acknowledgment of those competences of young Roma. This way it will contribute to the implementation of the national Roma Integration Strategies in the partner countries as part of the Europe 2020 Strategy, particularly to the increasing of the employment rate and the reduction of school drop-outs of young Roma. "YouthCompass" will be realised by partner organisations from Hungary, Germany, France and Romania and aims concretely at the modification of the French Model of Competence Balance for 14 to 25 year old Roma. After the successful test this target group will obtain tools for the professional orientation, career planning and the improvement of their employability. For the exploitation of those tools there is the need for Competence Councillors. Therefore, youth work actors from Hungary, Germany, France and Romania will be trained based on developed training material who will again educate additional multipliers in their countries. In order to be able to provide Competence Balance in the partner countries, two partner organisations will be certified as Competence Balance Centre within the project duration. Political decision makers ensure the implementation of the Competence Balance in the youth work systems of the partner countries. The project enables the target group in the partner countries for the first time to give a clear image of their personality and to recognise and assess existing strengths and weaknesses clearly. Based on this, they can plan a realistic future, check education and employment plans and build up motivations in order to face requirements of the education and labour market due to their strengths. Youth and educational institutions, labour administrations, NGO and employers are familiar with the target group Roma and receive through the project appropriate instruments, methods and practices to involve Roma as clients, learners, apprentices, job seekers, employees and partners.
With 10 to 12 million members, Roma are the biggest ethnic minority in Europe. A relevant reason for their permanent discrimination is their low education level. Due to that the disadvantages are especially obvious in the education sector. A real segregation exists. Of course, actual education deficits, discrimination, prejudices and clichés of the majority population as well as missing motivation, self-chosen isolation and the lack of self-knowledge of Roma are responsible for their limited access to education and employment. A large threshold for the access to education and employment, however, is the missing prove of their informally and non-formally acquired competences. Therefore, the recording, assessment and acknowledgment of those competences of Roma were the centre of our project. This way, it contributed to the implementation of the national Roma Integration Strategies in the partner countries as part of the Europe 2020 Strategy, particularly to the increasing of the employment rate and the reduction of the threat of poverty of Roma. "YouthCompass" was realised by partner organisations from Germany, France, Hungary and Romania and aimed concretely at the modification of the French Model of Competence Balance for Roma between 14 and 25 years. After the successful test, this target group obtains now tools for their new professional orientation, career planning and the improvement of their employability. They enable them for the first time, to get a clear picture of themselves by self-evaluation, to plan on this basis a realistic future and to build-up motivations for facing new challenges due to existing informally and non-formally gained competences. Education institutions, labour administrations, NGO and employers receive appropriate instruments, methods and practices to involve Roma as learners, jobseekers, employees or partners and to make their participation in education and work possible. For the exploitation of these tools Competence Councillors were needed. Therefore, nine education and labour market actors from Germany, France, Hungary and Romania were trained based on developed training material who again educated 18 additional multipliers in their countries. In order to be able to provide Competence Balance in the partner countries, two adult education institutions were certified respectively re-certified as Competence Balance Centre within the project duration. Political decision makers ensure a broad and sustainable application and use of the Competence Balance for the target group in the partner countries. For that, they work together in the local/regional Networks “Competence Balance”. Based on the concept for the implementation of mobility projects for youth workers that was developed in the project, an application was already submitted, additional training courses shall be implemented in the next years.