Cherven Bryag

General Information
 
ROMACT Cycle: 
Closed
Mayor of the Municipality: 
Danail Valov
Contact Person within the Municipality: 
Diana Dimitrova, Director of Eurofunds department / Verginia Bratanova Vasileva - Deputy Mayor
Facilitators: 
Daniela Mihaylova
Total population: 
30 524
Source: 
National Institute of Statistics, Bulgaria
Roma living in the Municipality: 
3 500
Description of the Municipality: 

*Disclaimer: The information and views set out in this page do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the Council of Europe and/or the European Commission. Neither the Council of Europe, the European Commission nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.
 
Cherven bryag is a municipality in northern Bulgaria, capital of Pleven Province, located at 125 km north-east of Sofia, 55 km south-west of Pleven, 56 km east of Vratsa, and 55 km south of Oryahovo. The Municipality consists of 2 cities and 12 villages. Most of the Roma in Cherven bryag live together in the so-called District 5. There are around 1.000 people living there and approximately 3.500 in the entire municipality (including the villages). 3 out of 29 members of the municipal council are from Roma origin. 
 
The main problems faced by local Roma are:

  • - Unequal position on the labor market, due to low education level and lack of qualification
  • - Early school drop-out among Roma children
  • - Life in isolated communities
  • - Lack of property and lack of regular incomes

The ROMACT Process

Cherven Bryag joined ROMACT Program in September 2017 with a letter of agreement. Shortly after, a Taskforce for Roma Inclusion was created.

The Community Action Group (CAG) identified some of the short/medium/long-term problems:
- The need to appoint educational mediators in order to improve the attendance level of the Roma children in schools
- The need to refurbish of the schools in the villages

  • - Training for the teachers to work in multicultural environment
  • - Additional work with the children who travel with their parents - in order to catch up with the school curriculum
  • - Provision of breakfast and lunch for the children in the schools
  • - Securing work opportunities for the Roma in the villages
  • - Provision of qualification courses
  • - Solving of the problems with the bad infrastructure in the Roma slums
  • - Mapping the housing to identify unlawful constructions
  • - Solving problems related to lack of address registration

On 30 April 2018 , the Municipal Council adopted the updated Municipal Action Plan for Roma Integration (MAPRI) 2018-2020. This updated version was prepared on the basis of the Community priorities list established by the CAG.

Several trainings were provided:

CAG was coached/ trained on:
* Understanding and contributing to municipal budgeting
* Advocating with Local Authorities for addressing social exclusion and marginalization
* Active civil participation as a condition for successful and sustainable development of society & local communities"
* Ensuring sustainability

Local authorities were coached/ trained on:
 * Matching available funding opportunities and MAPRI activities/priorities
* Intercultural environment

Taskforce was coached/ trained on:
* Preparation of monitoring plan and monitoring process

The following measures were implemented:
* Provision of bus transportation from Glava village to secondary schools in Cherven Bryag and Koynare

The Municipality benefited of ROMACT expertise for the following project:
"Socio-economic Integration of vulnerable groups in the Cherven Bryag Municipality" OPHRD-OPSESG
Beneficiaries: 689
Budget: 448 218 €
Status: approved
 

Timeline Points

8 Sep 2017
Step 1- Becoming Commited- Signature of the letter of commitment
27 Oct 2017
Creation of Taskforce
26 Nov 2017
Creation of CAG
14 Apr 2018
Step 2- Agreeing on needs and plans- Finalisation of Community Priorities List
30 Apr 2018
Step 3- Translating priorities into measures& projects- Adoption of Municipal Action Plan for Roma Integration
12 Jun 2018
Step 4- Funding, implementing, monitoring, Project proposal for Concept of municipality Cherven Bryag for social inclusion of vulnerable groups- ESIF
30 Sep 2019
End of ROMACT process
Disclaimer - © Council of Europe 2015 - © photo credit