<< Objectives >>The project partners from Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Serbia and Spain aim in the long run at keeping Roma music for coming generations and to preserve it as part of the cultural heritage of Europe. For that, “ROMusicA” shall provide the pre-conditions.<< Implementation >>Project activities are:1. Situation and need analysis with involvement of Roma musicians and experts.2. Workshop of ideas with involvement of Roma, Roma women and Roma musicians as well as relevant stakeholders.3. Designing of follow-up projects with which the identified needs shall be covered.<< Results >>Apart from comprehensive concepts for follow-up projects, a brochure for the distribution of information and a collection of recordings of Roma songs and melodies for which no notations exist will be developed during the project.

With 10 to 12 million members, Roma are the biggest ethnic minority in Europe. Opposite to the majorities, Roma do not have their own land and – with limits – also no national identity. What unites them beyond borders of the countries they live in, are their myths, habits and traditions. For the preserving and further development of their cultural identity, their language – Romanes – is indispensable. At the beginning of their migration from India, Romanes (actually Romani – coming from romani chip, „Roma language“) was still a common language. The long way that has been leading Roma for centuries over different continents and countries finally to Europe, but also their often long stay in those countries caused that Romanes fell apart in different dialects. Through the years, more and more words of the according country language were taken over into Romanes or the respective dialects. In a few European countries, e.g. Romania and Spain, it was forbidden for Roma for a long duration of time to speak their own language. This has also contributed to the loss of the common language. Until the younger past, Romanes was mainly only a spoken and orally inherited language. Unfortunately, until today no successfully standardised Romanes exists. Besides, it is written in several alphabets – Latin, Cyrillic and Devanagari. Despite all that, about 4.5 million Roma living in Europe speak Romanes. It is recognised in Macedonia and Kosovo as official regional language and in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary and Romania as minority language. Due to the century lasting social and cultural stigmatization and discrimination of Roma and their language, the use of Romanes as literature and stage language was prevented. This lead to the fact that Romanes could never really be anchored in education. In adult education it plays almost no role at all. With consideration of the fact that the participation of Roma in education after the obligatory school decreases relevantly, it gets clear that adult education is for many Roma older than 18 years the only possibility to educated themselves further, to balance education deficits and – even if late – to participate in lifelong learning. Therefore, our project aimed at preserving Romanes in the long run as relevant part of the cultural identity of Roma and to utilise it for concrete offers of adult education. The two years Strategic Partnership for the exchange of good practice will be realised by organisations from Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, North Macedonia and Romania.

In its resolution from 12 February 2019, the European Parliament showed the deficits in the implementation of the National Strategies for the integration of Roma and demanded therefore a stronger post 2020 EU-Framework. Without a doubt, there is progress in the four central fields of Roma integration – education, housing, employment and health. However, the unlimited health care of Roma is still not ensured.In the frame of the strategic partnership „Roma HEALTH Care“ (2017-1-DE02-KA204-004216), the health situation of Roma in different European countries was complexly researched for the first time. In a dialogue with relevant stakeholders at the local/regional level, the results of this analysis were discussed and the needs were selected that can be covered with support of European projects and the available resources on the spot.The strategic partnership „Roma HEALTH Care II“ is one of those follow-up projects. Basically, it aims at the improvement of the health situation of Roma in the partner countries. Among others, it shall particularly lead to:- raising the share of Roma obtaining a health insurance- increasing the number of Roma making use of available cancer prevention measures- decreasing the number of addicted Roma respectively of Roma who are threatened by addictions- improving the vaccination status - reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and the risk of venereal diseases- improving the dental hygiene- raising the number of Roma who regularly go in for sports and who eat healthier.In order to achieve the objectives, health education centres shall be established in the involved Roma communities in which accordingly trained health mediators – Roma themselves – implement target group specific measures of adult education for raising the health literacy. The training of health mediators is based on a newly developed Curriculum. An especially developed Handbook serves them as accompanying reference book. Local Action Plans Health for Roma are the legal framework for their work. The project will be realised by partners from Germany, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Greece, Hungary and Romania.In the project, Roma are not only beneficiaries but actors. On one hand they will be involved in the elaboration of the Intellectual Outputs, trained as health mediators and multipliers, implement and assess the Test Phases and disseminate information on the project and its results. On the other hand, they will participate in the adult education measures for raising their health literacy and contribute themselves to the improvement of their health situation this way.Thus, the project will concretely help to accomplish the demands formulated in the resolution of the European Parliament. This is particularly valid for:- the unlimited medical/health care and- the active involvement of Roma and Roma communities in the development, implementation and evaluation of measures andprojects for this target group.

"""Whe nyo ur eadt hi ste xty ouk no whow itfe elsi fyo uc ann otr eadp rop er ly."" (source of the German text: ""Grundbildung in Europa: Projekte und Perspektiven"", NA BIBB). According to UNESCO, an estimated number of 73 million adult Europeans are considered as functional illiterates. This is equal to 1/5 of the employable population aged 18 to 64 years. In the partner countries of the project this concerns 7.5 million adults in Germany; 2 million in Greece; 1.2 million in Hungary and 3.8 million in Romania. Unfortunately, there are no valid figures concerning the literacy rate of Roma. Experts say that the share of functional illiterates among adult Roma in the partner countries is 40 to 60 per cent. For this reason, Curricula for alphabetisation courses for Roma were developed in the Strategic Partnership „RomABC goes Europe!“ that consider their special needs. However, the envisaged improvements in reading and writing competences fell too short because functional illiteracy is also reflected in calculating, in dealing with ICT and in the capacity to act in every-day-life. Therefore, the further development of the Curriculum for raising the literacy rate of adult Roma with the emphasis numeracy and IT basics were the centre of our follow-up project. Besides, the development of a Handbook for trainers, a basic vocabulary and subject-relating vocabularies, the education of trainers in the frame of a Pilot Training and the elaboration of the concept for according Mobility Projects (KA1) were other parts of the project. „RomABC - the next dimension!“ was implemented by partner organisations from Germany, Greece, Hungary and Romania and aimed particularly at the reduction of functional illiterates among adult Roma, at increasing of their employability and at raising their share in adult education measures. With that, the project contributes concretely to the implementation of the EU Framework for national strategies for the Roma integration until 2020 and the national strategies of the partner countries as part of the Europe 2020 strategy including the European Agenda Adult Education, particularly the raising of the employment rate and the reduction of the part of Roma that is threatened by poverty and social exclusion."

A big obstacle for the access of adult Roma to education and employment is the missing proof of their formally, non-formally and informally acquired competences. In the previous project “ROMINKO”, we were able to utilise the French Model of Competence Balance – that has been available for other target groups in many European countries for years – for adult Roma. “ROMINKO II” aimed at anchoring the instrument at the national level in Greece, Hungary and Romania. Based on the National Strategies, a Model Strategy was elaborated for the European transfer. Roma in Germany were informed about the opportunities of the validation of their competences and motivated to use them. In Slovakia, where the French Model of Competence Balance is already offered all over the country, tailor-made offers can be provided for the target group of Roma now. Through the French Model of Competence Balance, Roma gain a clear image of their own personality by self-evaluation and can plan a realistic future and build-up motivations in order to face professional requirements due to existing formally, informally and non-formally acquired competences. This way, education and labour market actors, particularly employers, receive a transparent overview on the actual qualifications and competences of Roma so that they can fully participate in the education and labour market. For exploiting the instrument, Competence Counsellors are necessary. Thus, 15 labour market actors as well as adult educators and psychologists – partly Roma themselves – were trained in the project who again educated multipliers in their country. The developed Handbook is on one hand designed as accompanying reference book for labour market actors and Competence Counsellors presenting the most important connections and information about the French Model of Competence Balance for Roma that they should know. On the other hand, it contains relevant information on the implementation of Competence Balance for Roma, particularly selected methods and procedures. Besides, a guide was developed in the project with active involvement of the target group and experts that contains proven or newly developed motivation strategies and instruments with special consideration of the specific needs of Roma and requirements of adult education measures. Experienced adult education actors of the partner countries dealt with the guide in the frame of a training and use the gained knowledge in their countries. A concept for mobility projects makes the offer of the course “Motivation of Roma in adult education measures” (ERASMUS+, KA1) possible that is open for adult education staff and learners of all eligible countries. This way, the contents of the guide will be transferred in other countries. The three years project was realised by partners from Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Hungary and Romania. Relevant stakeholders of the national levels of those countries were members of the consortium or associated partners.