PETITION RESTRICTION FOR MORE EDUCATION FOR ROMA CHILDREN
Aim: Raising awareness for the problem of analphabetism of Roma children in general through the example of Porumbenii Mari and as a consequence the missing integration in Romanian society. Why there is a strong need of suitable governmental support, by changing the legislation regarding the monthly governmental allowance for children what they get without any condition as it is one of the basic rights of the families according to the law. We – Johanna and Roland Micke are volunteers from Germany taking part at the European Volunteer Service. One task of us is to support the school of Porumbenii Mari /Nagygalambfalva by trying to teach Roma children. The aim is to integrate the Roma to Romanian society by educational means. From October 2015 until January 2016 three up to five children came to the school regularly. We were working together with the teachers to create interesting lessons for them. A big part of it were games to connect learning with playing. We took a lot of time to practise with the pencil so that the children wrote their first letters and to the pleasure of all participating people, the first word was written in January. But afterwards they stopped coming to school without any visible reason. It also happened before and in those cases we invited them to school again, so that we were able to go on teaching. But this time even after 4 invitations carried out together with local authorities like the school principal, local priest and teachers they still refused to come to school again. Situation in Porumbenii Mari The situation with the Roma living nearby this village is quite unique. Roma families settled round about 25 years ago in a distance of 2km. Although they were not the owners of this land they started to build small and very simple houses without any electricity, water supply or heating. The educational level in this settlement is extremely low - they are all analphabets. From time to time educational projects were started, but didn’t succeed in the last 25 years. None of the children ever finished school out of many different reasons. Either they are old enough to get married and become parents at the age of 14, or the boys are strong enough to work/help their parents on the field or they have to look after smaller children of their families. There is no motivation to attend school. Task of the state In our experience the parents don’t understand why their children should go to school and would be motivated to attend school only because of money. Right now they get the money without any condition so that they aren’t motivated and don’t feel the need to go to school. If the state supported the integration process with some adjustments of the law it would help. The solution in our opinion would be to settle a strong condition for the families on what they can be paid, the monthly governmental allowance for children. Our suggestions are: · Parents should get the money, only if the children attend school regularly or miss less than 1 or 2 days a week. · Alternatively we suggest, not to adjust the law for the whole country but to empower the local authorities where it is needed. So that those authorities could intervene in the described way for a certain time, until the children come to school. We further experienced, that the work and teaching of those children with a weak social background needs a lot of attention and more than only one teacher. Even when Johanna and I were working together with 2 Roma pupils, taking part in the regular lessons with the responsible teacher, it took our full attention and capacity. Because of this, we further suggest, that the teachers should get further support of volunteers and educationist. In our point of view this support would achieve its aim in the best way in a “community house” directly in the Roma village. Via such a community place several positive impacts can be reached: Teachers and educationists could organize a preparation class for the Roma children; it can be meeting address for Roma and Hungarian reducing barriers between them and it can be used to create a structure/project for the European Volunteering program named Erasmus+. As a very last point: Johanna and I took part at planning meetings for setting up an afternoon program for disadvantaged/poor pupils which have mainly Roma background. This program is organized and financed by “Caritas Alba Iulia” and and is planned to start in September, in the new school year. Every pupil attending school in the morning is allowed to take part in the afternoon. They will get a warm lunch, support for doing the homework and in repeating/learning process. This program can only be successful, if the children come to school. Now the government can support this program with the appropriate measures like mentioned above. We had written this petition not only on our own. We had been discussing it together with the principal and the teachers of the “Scoala Gimnazială Porumbenii Mari”. They completely share this point of view as they had been facing this problem for 25 years. Right now they are feeling deeply helpless regarding this issue as they not only lack the support of government in the problem of organizing the schooling of Roma children, but there is a great pressure coming from authorities that they would be the only ones who are responsible for solving this problem. It is not only a problem of this school or schools in general in this country, but it is a much broader social issue which needs a positive governmental impact.
https://www.petitieonline.com/restrictii_pentru_mai_multa_educatie