All three countries adopted Strategies and related Action Plans with the goal to enhance the social inclusion of the Roma population (a general term used here to describe the Roma, Egyptian and Ashkali (RAE) communities living in the region) and to improve their social economic status, although the lack of political will and of allocated public budgets hinder any significant progress. Roma women are in a dire situation, as minority members and as women. All available indicators confirm this in the fields of education, employment, health status, and housing.

By empowering Roma women to adequately address different aspects and levels of priority needs identified, their position in society will improve. Further, by forming and strengthening partnerships and cooperations across the geographical areas and themes, their voices will be heard more clearly and their relevance will increase. The intervention logic is based on CARE’s women’s empowerment impact statement with three domains of change: 1. Enhanced participation and decision-making, 2. Reduced violence against women, and 3. Strong social movements engaging men.

In line with this hypothesis of change, CARE’s global experience on women’s empowerment and gender equality, and by building upon the problem analysis and the lessons learnt under the previous FAIR project, this intervention aims at further capacity building and skills enhancements of Roma women and men to undertake more significant roles within their communities, but also at national, regional and European levels in social inclusion and political participation processes. This will be achieved by providing support to individuals, organizations, civil society networks and national coalitions. The project further targets the Balkans‘ and European-level advocacy and networking and aims for an impact by targeting Roma communities directly with interventions focused on education, health and gender-based violence, and with a strong focus on engaging men and boys and local government representatives along the way as allies and partners.

Project purpose

Roma women NGO’s capacities are strengthened to address national and European strategies and interventions related to Romani women’s rights and the social inclusion of Roma communities.

Expected Results

1)    Roma women and girls are empowered to exercise their rights to education, health and to a life free from violence through targeted community-level assistance;

2)    Local inter-sectoral coordination mechanisms involving CSO and institutional stakeholders are established and strengthened to support the social inclusion of Roma communities;

3)    National networks of Roma and non-Roma women’s organizations are capacitated to influence and monitor the implementation of policies related to Roma women’s rights and gender equality at the local and national levels and to actively engage accountability mechanisms;

4)    Targeted Roma women’s organizations are strengthened to become active players in networking at the regional and European level with Roma and non-Roma peer organizations and relevant institutions.

Participants

The three local partner organizations are the main target group; through them ,10 national Roma women’s network members (organizations as well as individuals) will be reached in addition to 6 non-Roma organizations and 90 representatives of government institutions. The final participants are a total of 7,000 people; 6,000 Roma women/girls and men/boys in all 3 countries as well as 1,000 non-Roma persons.