The Roma Education Initiative (REI) finished in December 2005, marking the end of its four-year term (2002-2005). Originally conceived as a three-year project (2002-2004), REI experienced many changes over the course of its life as a response to conditions as they arose.

As a result of the capacity building component of this project, as well as being a result of the REI national projects themselves, a vast number of resources have been created as an outcome of REI. This website is dedicated to making those resources available, and to sharing the models and experiences of REI.

Highlights

EUMAP of the Open Society Institute released "Equal access to quality education for Roma" in the framework of the Roma Education Fund (REF) conference held on April 2-3 2007 in Budapest, Hungary. The report presents a comprehensive analysis of basic educational indicators as well as an analysis of the main constraints and barriers preventing Roma from obtaining full access to quality education in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia. It is available here.

REI aimed to tackle the unacceptable situation in the region of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe in education for Roma children by increasing national programming; mobilizing national agendas and resources; and advocating strongly and consistently for systemic and policy changes that work against segregation and racial discrimination, and for high-quality educational provision for Roma children. REI was implemented from 2002 to 2005.

The Roma Education Initiative was designed to work on both the international and national levels, and included grant-making and technical assistance functions. Though all projects were aligned with the overall REI goals and principles, and implemented the comprehensive approach methodology, each project was unique, based on the situation and context of each country. From its inception in 2002, REI funded seven national-level projects in Bulgaria, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. In addition, REI provided support to other national efforts focused on Roma education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo, through technical assistance and/or inclusion of implementing teams in international events.

REI did not envisage a centralized evaluation due to the variation in implementation and timeframes of projects; difficulties over the comparability of data would not have made that possible. Instead, REI relied mostly on national-level external evaluation of projects to provide data necessary to document its achievements. Though some data was collected centrally, the final report draws primarily from these national-level external evaluations, thus combining a cluster evaluation and multisite evaluation approach.

Full final report
Executive summary

National Level External Evaluations (2005)

REI projects, with each country being responsible for its own evaluation, developed their own evaluation plans, related to the common REI outcomes. Evaluation methodology varied according to the focus of each country’s REI project. Support was provided to the country teams, including the local external evaluators, in evaluation training, consultation on evaluation plans and data collection instruments. Pressure for accountability was exerted through having evaluation plans approved by an independent international Evaluation Consultant, with feedback provided for final external evaluation reports.

REI projects had varying begin and end points, due to an ongoing call for proposals. As a mid-term glance at progress of the overall REI project, but taking into consideration that individual projects were in different stages of implementation, a Midterm Report was prepared in December 2004 to give an idea of what REI had achieved at that point.

World Bank's Roma Website

Equal Access to Quality Education for Roma

Our Stories program
Next Page Foundation launched Our Stories program in December 2005 as a follow up of its Reading Promotion for Romani Children program. It encourages the process of Roma youth inclusion through participation in reading performances and other creative reading- and writing-related practices in Roma communities in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia and Montenegro itself mainly by artistic means and direct involvement in the text creation.