The Roma Education Initiative (REI), run by OSI's Education Support Program in cooperation with the Children and Youth Program, was designed to work in collaboration with Soros foundations and closely allied spin-offs or NGOs.

REI aimed to tackle unacceptable conditions in education for Roma children in Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe . A three-year effort, launched in 2002, it sought to increase national programming, to 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 Roma children in the school systems. It challenged governments to meet their democratic commitments, working in collaboration with OSI programs such as the Roma Regional Participation Program and partners such as the European Roma Rights Center.

The Roma Education Initiative had two goals:

• the elimination of discriminatory process in the school systems of countries in the region; and
• the establishment, through positive interventions—especially in the area of early childhood schooling and literacy—of the conditions necessary to enable Roma children to succeed in school on equal terms with their peers.

For more information, visit the Roma Education Initiative website.