Within the project Give them a chance (acronym GEM) the project partners from Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia will prepara a training program for teachers, who in different educational and professional adult training educate the members of Romani ethnic manority. The educators of the adults, that work in area with members of Romani ethnic minority and include them in different educational programs, are also facing the lack of need for development and ascent of competences of professional staff (teachers), who educate the members of Romani ethnic minority in adult educational programs and we are facing similar problems, such as: a) high decrease of the number of members of Romani ethnic minority, as in programs of formal education as well in professional training;b) unsuccessfulness of adult Roma in all forms of education and trainings, and also extremly poor teaching achievements; c) educational drop-outs, due to different reasons (poor understanding of the language of the majority and vocabulary, poor graphomotoric skills, demotivation due to different system values, low self-esteem,…). Success in education of adult Roma often depends upon their motivation for visiting the. Roma are experiencing every situation, in witch they appear, extremely emotional, so because of this one must act with them, also in education, extremely subtile, above all is necessary to offer them large rate of understanding and accepting them with all their specialities, which causes many problems for teachers within the adult education.Many teachers, that teach in our programs, don't have concrete experiences with teaching the adult members of Romani ethnic minority. No formal program of education, that future teachers are being educated about, has given knowledge how to teach members of different vulnerable groups and consider their social and linguistic specifics.Because of this have the project partners, LU Lendava, POU Čakovec, Amrita obk Pécs, UZOR Orehovica and Romani Union of SLovenia decided, that we will prepare a program for the teachers in educational and professional programs for adults, that educate the members of Romani ethnic minority. In that way we will contribute to development of competences for working with adult Romani population, and in direct way contribute to higher success of adult Roma in formal and informal education, as well in adult professional trainings. Before the preparation of training program we will perform an extensive research and do the analysis of the needs, we will also manage to provide preparation of quality program of training to raise the competences of teachers, who teach adult Roma in educational programs, as such will be implemented in pilot training program realisations and the gained competences will be tested in practice. The Roma, that will take part in education within the project, will prepare a manifesto of learning of members of Romani ethnic minority, in which they will describe what kind of teaching and learnig they wish to have.Partnership, that was formed in the project, wasn't created only for the needs of the project, but our cooperation has already existed for longer time, however, as partners we matured to this degree, that we dare to accede to implement such an important idea with our knowledge and experiences, above all for the Romani community. Our wish is not only to qualify and develop the competences of the teachers for their work with adult members of Romani ethnic minority, but also to enpower the Romani ethnic minorities in the field of education. The common idea is not the only thing that connects the partners, but also our shared past and culturally-historical base.
Statistical data from adult education organizations continue to show that the percentage of Roma enrolled in formal and informal programs, as well as vocational training in adult education is still extremely low, whereas the success rate of Roma in adult learning programs is even lower. Many of them drop out of education even before the program ends. One of the two major factors affecting the performance of Roma adults in adult education are definitely the Roma themselves. By knowing how to motivate and attract them, they will not abandon the education programs before the completion. The second factor are adult educators, who often, due to lack of work experience with Roma adults and lack of familiarity with the Roma cultural platform, as well as the situation in which Roma live, inadvertently make the mistake that drives Roma to drop out of adult education programs. The fact that Roma still do not perceive education as a value is not helping either. The project partnership has therefore decided to prepare a training program for those teachers, who teach adult Roma in IO programs and by this empower them to work with members of the Roma minority, and at the same time prepare a Roma Student Manifesto together with the Roma. The manifesto will clearly state what content and in what way Roma want to learn, underlined with the life story of a young Roma who, despite coming from a Roma settlement, succeeded in life. The main objective of the GEM project was clearly aiming at teachers in adult education and vocational training programs attended also by Roma ethnical minority, as to develop and raise competences for teaching adult Roma ethnical minorities. With this objective, we wanted to empower teachers for work with the Roma adults and for teaching. Through learning the specifics of Roma culture, identity, history, and language, as well as learning directly about life in the Roma settlement, while also upgrading their work knowledge with vulnerable target groups, primarily adult Roma. The indirect goal was aiming at members of the Roma minority, as it is precisely with trained adult educators that we want to influence on the performance of Roma adults in adult education in the long term, thereby increasing their employment opportunities and competitiveness in the labour market. Five organizations from Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia participated in the project. I.e., three Roma organizations: the Union of Roma of Slovenia from Murska Sobota, association Amrita OBK from Pécs (Hungary) and the association for Roma education – UZOR, from municipality Orehovica (Croatia), as well as two adult education organizations, i.e. the Public open university Čakovec (Croatia) and the People's University Lendava (Slovenia). All organizations have many years of experience in working with members of the Roma community and are therefore familiar with the current situation in the field of adult Roma education, and consequently their success in the mentioned programs. The partnership also carried out a statistical analysis of the current situation, by interviewing Roma adults and educators teaching in the adult education programs, as well as decision-makers, who could influence the funding of the IO programs for Roma. The analysis included the integration of the decision-makers in the programs, the teacher-training program (adult educators) teaching adult Roma in adult education programs.The partnership published Preprosto enostavno: čas je za spremembe (Simply simple: it is time for changes by Sandi Horvat). The book was translated into three languages of the partnership. It is suitable for teachers who should learn the reasons, why Roma choose to drop out of education through the storytelling, as well as the motivation that Roma need to complete their education. The partnership also published the Roma student manifesto, done together with the adult Roma involved in various adult education programs. Apart from manifesto, we also conducted pilot trainings for adult educators and at the same time focus groups with teachers and based on their comments improved the program. We enabled teachers, who participated in the pilot implementation of the programs to put the acquired knowledge into practice, and discussed with the Roma within the focus groups the work of the teachers after the training. Extensive dissemination of the project, especially the stories in Preprosto enostavno: čas je za spremembe has contributed to the recognisability of the project, as it has been described as the life textbook by some media. Two primary schools and one secondary school in Croatia have decided to include the stories in the required reading. The project and its results supported Slovenian, Croatian and Hungarian Roma organizations, besides European Roma Association. In addition to the aforementioned results, we also carried out four international visits and a closing conference where we presented the most important results of the project.