’KNOWLEDGE AS GIFT’ PROJECT PROMOTION

Member of the City Council in charge for Social Welfare and Family and Children Affairs Professor Nikola Ćirović, PhD, attended the promotion of the project ‘Knowledge as Gift’, at the ‘Dušan Radović’ Primary School, realized through cooperation between the City of Novi Sad and ‘Life as Inspiration’ Association. The aim of the project is literacy among the adult Roma population and professional assistance for mastering school materials, as well as campaigning for enrolment of Roma children in preschool and primary school institutions.
- City of Novi Sad is leading a responsible social policy and it will continue to support projects such as this one, since education of the Roma population is one of the prerequisites for their social integration. The project comprises of a whole range of counselling and therapeutic and socio-educational services which lead to the improvement of their social status, since their education contributes not only to development of the Roma Community, but also to society as a whole – said Professor Ćirović, PhD.
Project Coordinator Ms. Ljilјana Maširević said that statistic data indicate that the largest number of illiterate and uneducated Roma population members are women, and that the average length of schooling is five and a half years.
- It is very difficult to estimate the number of Roma children who were never enrolled in a preschool, primary school, or who those who left school. On the basis of the data we have from the field, however, we know that number is huge. The reasons for leaving school are numerous, but they are mostly connected to the lack of financial means, insufficient adjustment of educational institutions, as well as to the high level of Roma children discrimination – said Ms. Maširević.

In Novi Sad, November 17^th 2015