Slobozia Bradului

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Last update: 12/01/2018
 
Slobozia Bradului is situated in Vrancea County and manages six villages: Cornetu, Corotenu, Liesti, Olareni, Slobozia Bradului and Valea Beciului. According to the 2011 Census, Slobozia Bradului has 4.934 Roma inhabitants. Also, the Roma community is the largest in the entire county Vrancea - and the poorest. Roma persons from this community lack jobs (the unemployment rate is 96%), they need access to water system, sewage and school infrastructure. They live out of their business, but nothing is registered fiscally, nothing is recorded. They sell fruit and vegetables, non-ferrous metals, leather purchases. 307 families are living from minimum guaranteed income and there are only 6 Roma ethnics who finished high school and only one promoted the baccalaureate exam. There is very low educational level from all points, they do not pay taxes and have large amounts of money in debts - 2 million Euro administrative fines.
 
Romani language is greatly valued here – it is perceived as a culture per se, they are afraid not to lose their identity. The language and the words must be maintained, for the children not to forget them. By teaching the language in schools, they are shown respect for their language, for the community, for their ethnical belonging and for their identity. There are 7 Romani teachers in this municipality, only one of them of Roma ethnicity.
 
School situation for the pupils from Slobozia Bradului village is as follows:
- high rate of school dropout among girls (because of the early marriages)
- 50% of them graduate secondary school (eight classes)
- children between 3 to 6 years old stands a school participation level of about 30% less in comparison with the compulsory school education.
 
Causes leading to this situation are linked to the precarious economic situation of families; lack of identity documents; language difficulties and insufficient knowledge of the national language;
lack of educational support at school and in the family.
 
Roma persons in this community used to belong to the traditional ursari group and they speak Romani. Roma community in Slobozia Bradului has the highest birth rate in the country, and also they currently hold the record on the number of traffic fines in Romania. The community is very traditional; there are many cases of early marriages (girls are married at 12-15 years, boys at 18).