Overcoming attitudes to engage with the Roma (NEW UPDATE)
There have been made many efforts by local, national and European level to include the Roma population. Despite these efforts the Roma people still face high levels of social exclusion.
This means for many Roma poverty, discrimination, unemployment or informal exploitative work, dependency on social assistance, low or no educational attainment, poor health and inadequate living conditions often without legal tenure.
The Roma-Net project; support for the Roma people
To help and support the integration of the Roma population, the Roma-Net project was established. The project is funded by the Urbact II program and consists of an partnership of ten European cities. These partners share expertise and good practices. The main aim is to improve and deliver local policy development and create a stronger community cohesion between the Roma populations and their neighbouring communities.
Focusing on three themes
The cities formulated three themes together:
- Active community engagement and empowerment: focuses on effective participatory activities and implementing tools, anti-discrimination awareness and social marketing;
- Integrated and area based approach: focuses on service provision, tackling segregation by housing improvement and area based regeneration;
- Support and use an intermediate labour market and maximise the role of the social economy, social firms and social accounting.