Romania Building Bridges

Project : TACT 16 Feb 2011 |

Bailesti, Romania, December 2010: In the city of Bailesti, located in Dolj County in the South-East of Romania, authorities from different local institutions shook hands and began to put in place strategies in order to assist children in various situations of vulnerability. Under the coordination of the Terre des hommes’ team, influential people within the community joined efforts in the process of identifying the most vulnerable children, selecting cases requiring an immediate and direct intervention and evaluating their socio-familial situation.

Thanks to the joint efforts, 41 children now benefit from literacy and school support program. Besides this twice a week they participate in activities based on sport and games aimed at improving their psychosocial well being and skills. Activities with children are organized by local people who have received training through the MOVE Project run by Tdh, in order to transfer them knowledge and skills about the psychosocial development of children through games and sport. The working team consists of one representative of the public social services, one representative of the education sector and a local Roma expert. Responding to the challenge launched by Tdh, they started to work together in order to build approaches that permit the identification and the support of marginalized children. Thanks to their cooperation, over 140 vulnerable children have been identified in the municipality. The next step is the evaluation of their social and familiy environment for the most critical situations, while personalized intervention plans will be drafted for each of them, according to their specific needs.

The School – Engine of Social Inclusion

During the Adult Education Week, the Dolj County School Inspectorate, through the HoT (House of Teachers) – the department responsible for professional development programs and continuous training for teachers – organized on the 8th of December 2010, in partnership with Tdh, a roundtable themed School and social inclusion in the framework of the national program for valuing lifelong learning opportunities. School inspectors, school directors and teachers, Roma experts and Roma school mediators, social actors, social assistants and representatives of some NGOs (World Vision, Vasiliada) were invited to the event. Presentations, speeches, accounts of experiences and future plans were focused on possible and feasible ways of social inclusion for the most vulnerable children in schools. They mentioned examples of good practice in Western countries where a lot of progress has been made in the field of education, with special attention to the needs of vulnerable children.

One of the most touching examples of good practice was the direct testimony, given by the team of local experts mobilized by Tdh in Bailesti (the Roma mediator, the coordinator of the social services, school directors, the alderman, etc..). They shared to those present at the meeting their common experience in working, together with Tdh, on the assistance of the most marginalized children in their community. At the end of the round table participants divided in teams and enabled to put into practice some psychosocial methods, were challenged to find a slogan and to express it by using the beauty and the power of colors. (CD)