PROGRAM VZDELÁVANIA ------------------------PROGRAM BÝVANIA ------------------------PROGRAM ZAMESTNANOSTI ------------------------KOMUNITNÉ CENTRÁ ------------------------PODPORA PARTICIPÁCIE ------------------------PREVENCIA OBCHODU S ĽUĎMI ------------------------ČLÁNKY/PUBLIKÁCIE ------------------------ZAPOJTE SA ------------------------DATABÁZA CLPP ------------------------2% Z DANE ------------------------

 

People in Need Slovakia 

People in Need Slovakia has been founded in 2004 as a branch of Czech humanitarian and developmental organization, operating in 37 countries all over the world.  People in Need provides relief aid and development assistance, while working to defend human rights and democratic freedom.  Both in Czech and Slovak Republic, we administer social integration programs and provide informative and educational activities.

The main mission of Slovak branch, as a part of social integration programs, is the reduction of poverty and inclusion of socially marginalized Roma localities.

Situation of Roma in Slovakia

 

According to expert assessment, there are about 320 000 of Roma in Slovakia. Approximately 40% of them are living in separated or segregated localities (co called Roma settlements), which are socially excluded from the rest of the society.

Socially excluded Roma are facing number of problems related to inadequate housing conditions, low level of education, high and long-term unemployment, low quality of health care resulting in poor health conditions, poverty, indebtedness and dependency on the system of state social benefits , low accessibility of social services and institutions of civic society.

Aims and principles of our work:

  • Complexity – as phenomenon social exclusion is created and preserved by several interconnected factors, we believe, that only interventions aimed on simultaneous elimination of all of them have the chance to be successful and to bring the change. So the effort of our programmes is to affect most of aspects of social exclusion - employment, housing, education, social policy and others.
  • Partnership – active involvement of all parts engaged in the problem – local municipalities, institution, providers of social and other services, employers, schools, and at least but not last Roma themselves.

Levels of our interventions:

  • direct services (helping concrete people in concrete localities); which are aimed mostly on elimination the internal barriers for social inclusion
  •  public policy - aimed on influencing the environment/external conditions for inclusion

Our programme priorities are:

 

1. Support of education Programme – aimed on elimination of barriers in the access to quality education for Roma children and adults. Programme is implemented through:

  • Low-threshold programme for children and youth and non-formal education in our Community centres
  • Individual tutoring (“DoT Program”) 
  • Training of professionals (teachers, school stuff and management) and volunteers, working with socially disadvantaged children
  • Assistance to schools and municipalities in designing inclusive educational policies and programmes
  • Research activities
  • Advocacy activities – coordination of coalition of NGO´s “For equality in Education” aimed on elimination of segregation on Slovak schools

2.Housing Programme – aimed on designing and testing models of social housing, which comply with criteria of respecting the local specifics, self-help and low-cost; implemmented through: 

  • Building the experimental model of straw-ball house
  • Designing the manual for municipalities and individuals interested in low-cost housing

3. Employment Programme – aimed on increasing the employment and employability of inhabitants of excluded Roma localities and implemmented through:

  • Providing labour and career counselling service 
  • Assistance to municipalities and other institution by founding a social enterprise or municipal companies 
  • Research activities (e.g. Trafficking in Human Beings in the context of excluded Roma localities)

4. Support of participation Programme – aimed on increasing the involvement of members of Roma localities in public life, and in self-government and creation of local policies and implemmented through:

  • Facilitation and initiation of creation of community planning and local development strategies 
  • Community activities (in Community centres) 
  • Support and training of Roma activists

Community centres as centres of complex services

In Community centres all programmes are put together on local level and they represent our effort to reach real and concrete change in a concrete village, which can be then used as an example of solution for other localities.

The broadly defined aim of Community centres is to help people to have the possibility of break the vicious cycle of social exclusion and to have the possibility of choice.  The activities are aimed against the situation where the long-term living in social exclusion, without work, in absolutely inappropriate housing conditions, with rejection from the surrounding society leads in many cases to passive acceptance of poverty.

 

Direct services, provided by Community centres are:

  • Client services:
  1. Educational activities – programmes of tutoring, non-formal education; training courses for long-term unemployed 
  2. Low-threshold club and free-time activities for children and youth 
  3. Labour and career counselling service 
  4. Community activities 
  • Services for municipalities and institutions:
  1. Networking and assistance by creating inclusive programmes and policies (e.g. School educational programmes; Local strategies of complex approach to marginalized Roma communities) 

  2. Assistance services for employers of our clients

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