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SARAJEVO, September 16 (FENA) - Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) introduced today 2019-2021 National Platform on Roma Integration to highlight the necessary integration of Roma, their employment, housing and education.
According to local communities, there are approximately 40,000 Roma people living in BiH, and some of them are in European countries. Only five to seven percent of Roma are employed.
RCC's Team Leader within the Roma Integration project, Orhan Usein, states that about 63 percent of Roma work in the informal sector, mainly seasonal jobs, services, cleaning and collection of secondary raw materials.
“The Roma integration projects have given good results so far, because the number of educated Roma attending tertiary education has tripled, therefore I consider education to be the first step in integration,” Usein believes.
Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH allocates funds to employment programs each year, and about 520 people have passed this program.
“Unfortunately, only 25 percent of them kept their jobs,” said Deputy Minister for Human Rights and Refugees of BiH Saliha Đuderija.
She stressed that it is necessary to improve the qualification structure of education in the context of advocating for other programs that would enable Roma to retrain, qualify and be competitors for the labor market.
Conclusions of today's conference will be included in the further planning and implementation of the technical assistance provided by the RCC Roma Integration Project, funded by the European Union and the Open Society Foundation.
(FENA) A. B.
