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: 

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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 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

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.

Trainings provided by ROMACT experts :

Community Action Groups (CAG):
* 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;
* Sustainable civic participation of CAG;
Legal frame for addressing discrimination.

Local Authorities (LA):
* Matching available funding opportunities and MAPRI activities/priorities
* Intercultural environment;
Approaches for working with and within Roma community. Working in intercultural environment;
Harmonizing activizm with professionalism;
Round table for closing ROMACT cycle.

Taskforce :
* 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

 

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
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