Three Years of Roma Versitas Albania

THREE YEARS OF ROMA VERSITAS ALBANIA, THE SUCCESS CONTINUES

Three years of Roma Versitas Albania organised its first conference, full of 3-years of success, giving Roma students the opportunity to develop their capacities in several areas covered by RomaVersitas Programs. The main mission of the RomaVersitas program is to increase retention rates, academic performance and graduation rates, building the self-confidence and identity of full-time Roma students enrolled in higher education in Albania, as well as to improve their professional skills and personal with the provision of training programs, academic tutoring and mentoring, strengthen their relationships and knowledge of their Roma identity and human rights.

In his speech, the Executive Director, Mr. Emiliano Aliu said: “The dream I have always had has been and is for Roma students to be educated and trained to make changes in social policies for the benefit of our Roma community in Albania.” Today, the number of Roma students has increased significantly and this is thanks to the work we have done with our students. I am proud that we have managed to successfully implement the RomaVersitas Program in three cities: Tirana, Korca and Elbasan.

Guests in the panel were: Mrs. Nora Malaj, Deputy Minister of Education; Mrs. Ina Kokëdhima, representative of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth; Ms. Iva Nathanaili, ESERE/UNDP Project Coordinator; Mrs. Ermira Azermadhi, Executive Director of SHIS; Mrs. Marsela Taho, Facilitator of Roma Education Fund for Albania and Mr. Arben Kosturi, Executive Director of Disutni Albania.

Mrs. Nora Malaj greeted the RomaVersitas program, where she said that Roma youth is very important to graduate, as this will create integrity and sustainable development in their community. We as the Minister are pleased that 120 Roma students are graduating.

The representative of Social Welfare and Youth Mrs. Kokëdhima in her speech strongly supported the initiatives undertaken to date by Roma Versitas and that she is ready to wait for any problem addressed to give a solution.

An opportunity and a push forward has been given by the Roma Education Fund, which Mrs. Taho considered very important the attendance of Roma students in universities as REF has continued and will continue to support Roma students, one of the main priorities of REF is that we build a Roma Elite based with graduate students who will represent our Roma community everywhere – added Mrs. Taho, Roma Education Facilitator.

In this Conference that had a large presence of Roma students, a key pillar that meets the professional but also financial needs of students was the help that ESERE Project has provided to students by supporting them in internships to increase capacity in the branch where they study students, Mrs. Iva Nathanaili showed that ESERE is a project where it is based on self-employment and internships are showing an advancement of the professional situation of Roma and Egyptian students – said Mrs. Nathanaili ESERE Project Coordinator.

In the first years of the Roma Versitas program there was a collaboration with the International Solidarity Associations where the guest was the Executive Director Mrs. Ermira Azermadhi, where she said that this project has helped meet the needs of Roma students after giving English language courses, training of software programs such as Office packages, tutorials and most importantly Roma language courses and Roma culture, as in this way every student feels proud to be Roma and to represent his culture by achieving results at the University.

Roma Versitas has extended the project to three areas: Tirana, Korca and Elbasan. Korça has had an important role in helping students in Korça as never before has a program like RomaVersitas been implemented in important areas dedicated to Roma students. Mr. Arben Kosturi tells us that his 3-year journey in this project has trained many young people towards their studies and has influenced their personal life by socialising in the social life of the student.

During the conference were presented 9 RVA student projects called Student Initiative (SIP) who in the implementation of these projects helped the Roma community in various fields that took place during the years 2014-2016.