Focus Areas
The Roma Education Initiative (REI), which ran from 2002–2005, was run by the Education Support Program at OSI–Budapest, in cooperation with OSI’s Children and Youth Programs. It was designed to work in collaboration with Soros foundations and/or closely allied spin-offs or NGOs.
REI aimed to tackle the unacceptable situation in education for Romani children in Central and Eastern Europe and South Eastern Europe. The initiative sought to increase national programming, to ambitiously mobilize national agendas and resources, and to advocate strongly and consistently for systemic policy changes that work against segregation and all forms of racial discrimination of Romani children in the school systems. It challenged governments to meet their democratic commitments, working in collaboration with OSI programs such as the Roma Participation Program and partners such as the European Roma Rights Center.
REI provided support by:
- offering technical support to Soros foundations or implementing NGOs in designing national strategies, program content, fundraising, monitoring and evaluation, and policy support (both for written papers and for design of policy workshops and seminars); and
- funding national implementation efforts, expert exchanges, international cooperation, and policy support.
The resources that were developed through REI, as well as the models that were piloted, are available on the REI website at www.osi.hu/esp/rei.
