ENHANCING EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
FOR ROMA COMMUNITES OF ALBANIA.

The Albanian Roma UNION Amaro-Drom with the support of UNICEF, MASH and Roma Education Fund has successfully implemented the first pilot year of the project “Enhancing Early Childhood Development Opportunities for Roma Communities of Albania”. The starting date of the project was March 28, 2007 and still goes on untill March 2009. The Albanian Roma UNION Amaro-Drom implemented in the best possible way all the activities regarding the achievement of the objectives on the basis and the contractual terms of the Agreement with UNICEF.

On going project: March 2007- Mach 2009

Main Goal: “ Ensure access to preschool and better parenting initiatives for Roma children and families”

This 12-month project was focused on three areas; in Saver/Lushnje, Morave/Berat and Korce. This project realized to provide children with opportunities to learn. Early childhood education activities were organized in three community centers regularly. To promote importance of early childhood education and involvement of parents and communities from the early years, training and volunteer opportunities were provided for the stakeholders.

As the following data demonstrate there are greater numbers of children accessing the ECD service and their parents are showing interest in seeking the ECD service. There are notable changes in parents' behavior regarding children's place within the family and change in parental contributions to children's education. At the end of the first pilot project, 150 individual children have received early childhood education regularly.

In addition, close to 429 children in the age group of 0-6 years that do not regularly attend the centers have benefited from the provision of weekly health check-ups. So, the number of children that benefited in total from the health services was 560.

464 parents and community members who have participated in the project have been advocated about the importance of early childhood education and have encouraged other parents and families to pay attention to the importance of care in the early years. There are 674 mothers and young women that have provided Care and Counseling from the specialist of Family Planning sessions.

Four teaching staff in the centers and parents, equipped with additional skills before and during the experience, have demonstrated high level of skills in encouraging and helping children to develop socially and emotionally.The main strategies for the project implementation were; cooperation with local government for sustainability; capacity building (utilization of the centers for the community needs); social mobilization (through community and involved staff volunteering).

Amaro Drom has a standing relationship with the local government. This relationship has had very important impact in the attendance of the project activities. In some special experiences the Local Government has supported by its own all the organization of the particular activity, like the example of the celebration of the New Year's Eve Events in Korce. Support from the local government has else been secured for some of the maintenance costs incurred for the operation of the centers such as wood for heating. Most of the work with the local government has been focus on placing educators under the payroll of the local government beyond the project cycle.

Some of the resources developed to conduct the project activities are not time-bound; the activities may be replicated year after year making this project also cost-effective.

Comparative analyze of Results (two phases) of Early Development Instrument.

The Albanian Roma UNION Amaro-Drom hold up by UNICEF and Roma Education Fund, adapted the Early Development Instrument of Offord Center for Child Studies McMaster University, “Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation 2004/2005“ , and used it in two phases to evaluate the development and progress of children 101 children attending the project in Saver, Korce and Morave.

This instrument is a teacher-completed checklist that evaluates children willingness and capacity to learn at school in five principal areas: physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, communication skills and general knowledge. It stresses also two other important areas: indicating child's special skills and problems, but always giving importance to the group and not just to individuals.

The second phase of the instrument was implemented during March 2008, and the results are as the following:

It is obvious the progress of children in the principal domains; its notable recovered physical health and well-being of almost all the children; almost all the children have gained new social competences and improved the familiar ones; they are showing more and more emotional maturity perpetually; children's language is improved enormously and its notable their cognitive development advancement; their communicative skills are enhanced and in general they access after this one year experience some general knowledge described below.

• There is a decrease of children's number which are not dressed in appropriate way for attending educational course.
• Initially, a large number of children have not respected school-time but they are used to be systematic month after month, as result of the parent's awareness about the importance that the pre-school education has.
• Deficiency in foods is a permanent problem which influences the attendance of educational course. There are 7 children who have permanent underfeed problems and they have difficulties on concentrating during the learning process.
• There are noticed better results in coordinating movements of children, they are improved evidently.
• The most part of children have good skills for holding a pen, a chalk, for holding on hands and using different objects. They climb very well the stairs; they appear too much dynamic in kindergarten. In general they have superior physical development. Children have fine skills in holding books on hands.
• In general, children have presented good quality of skills in using Albanian language; only two of them have difficulties in speaking Albanian language. It's notable improvement of using this language.
• There is an increase of children skills for telling stories in a clear and good way. The children are better involved in imaginative games now, although not all of them have those skills. It is noticed a large number of children who are involved in imaginative roles very well.
• Also there are noticed considerable improvements in articulation of the words. However there is to much work to do for those children in this field.
• Children who attend the kindergarten show high interest for exploring the books: book illustrations, picture materials etc. This interest is becoming higher although with small values. In general, children show interest for books illustrations and it was an expected phenomenon.
• It has been increased in a considerable number the percentage of children who are able to identify at list 10 letters of Albanian alphabet. This is an important index of the improvement of children development level in kindergartens.
• According to results, the number of children who haven't good quality in associating of specific sounds with appropriate letters, who aren't aware about words rhyme, who are not interested about words reading, is still remaining negative, but on the other hand compared with the results of first phase evaluation, indicators are improved.
• Although there are new children enrolled in kindergartens, the number of children who experiment in writing is the same with those of the first phase of evaluation.
• In the second phase of evaluation is increased in considerable value the number of children who are interested for mathematics.
• It is increased the number of children who recognize the numbers from 10 to 20.
• It is improved the ability of children for knowing the basic geometrical figure.
• It is increased in a considerable way the interest of children for music.
• It is noticed children's ability for finding alternative way for solving their problems. They have started to show special skills for solving those problems perpetually.
• There are noticed improvements in reduction of irritability level that children show during the lesson and in their house with their parents.
• In general, there are noticed improvements in emotional condition of children. They seem happy and rarely show sadness expressions.
• It is icreased their ability for manteining self-control.
• It is increased the adaptability of children with kindergarten. They do not cry before going to kindergarten, they came with desire and bit by bit the habit of crying before going to kindergarten is decreased.
• There is improved significantly the security that children have in their self. They take responsibility for the actions that they do.
• In general, children show attention during lessons, but 2% of them often are inattentive, 32% of them show inattentive states. This is caused from different reasons but the most important is the deficiency of food.

Interaction scheme in the communities

Interaction to improve educational situation of Roma Communities in Albania according to the Amaro-Drom experience

Albanian Roma UNION

Amaro-Drom