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While the spotlight these days is on

Europes growing Muslim population,its largest minority group gets

relatively little attention. The Roma

Education Fund (REF), which has

been working since 2005 to help

young Roma get integrated into

national education systems, hopes

to significantly reduce the Romas

perennial marginalisation.

Set up within the framework of the

Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015,

and supported by its co-founders,

the World Bank and the Open SocietyInstitute, and a host of national

governments, REF also receives

funding from a group of foundations.

Although this support is fairly modest,

foundations provide important added

value to the Fund and can help close the

funding gap faced by REF as it works to

close the educational gap in outcomes

between Roma and non-Roma.

Hywel Ceri Jones, Policy Director of

the Network of European Foundations

(NEF), calls REF a real attempt toempower the Roma people by

providing a more focused policy and

funding framework that they can take

full advantage of. NEF has brought

together a group of foundations under

its umbrella to provide collective

support to the Fund. For the 2005-2009

period, the NEF group has committed

900,000 euros out of the total REF

budget of 28,775,831 euros. It has a seat

on the REF Board, putting it in a good

position to influence Fund policies.

Christian Petry, Executive Director ofthe Freudenberg Stiftung, represents

the NEF group on the Board and chairs

the NEF Steering Committee dealing

with the Fund. For the first time there

really is a comprehensive approach to

the Roma riddle, says Petry regarding

the Fund.

The idea of foundation involvement

in REF was first incubated as a projectin an EFC interest group (now part

of the EFC Diversity, Migration and

Integration Interest Group) and received

the support of the EFC Governing

Council. Petry, whose foundation is a

member of the group, was mandated

by it to approach NEF to help make the

idea a reality. This led to the project

being spun off to NEF. Four of the five

members of the NEF group supporting

the Fund are EFC members. The

Fund supporters include the Evens

Foundation, the Freudenberg Stiftung,the Barrow Cadbury Trust, the Charles

Stewart Mott Foundation and the

Remembrance and Future Fund.

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of

REF is that it works within the context

of national government and EU policies

towards the Roma. The precondition

for operation of REF [in a given country]

is that there is a National Action Plan [for

Roma Inclusion], that the government

is taking it seriously, stresses Petry.

Working within Action Plans gives REFaccess to top officials in the Decade

of Roma Inclusion countries. This is

certainly an added value. Its opened the

doors, notes Jones.

Two-way street

Alexandre Marc, Director of the Roma

Education Fund, sees such networking

as a two-way street. He considers it

one of the three main benefits that

foundations bring to the Fund, along

with experience and, of course, funding.

The foundations supporting the Fundhelp it gain access to NEF and its

partners, as well as EU institutions and

other key actors.

At the same time, REF enables

foundations to influence government

policy because it has access to public

officials at the highest levels by having

the World Bank and important bilateral

donors on its board. So its also in their

interest they wouldnt have as much

A school with integrated education of Roma and non-Roma children in Hungary

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access to governments if they were just

running [their own] programmes, saysMarc. There are things that foundations

bring to us andthings we can bring to

foundationswe bring a lot of dif ferent

actors together, so we have convening

power. Moreover, REF can magnify

foundations impact in this area. This

scaling-up element is very important

[for] an organisation like ours, adds

Marc.

According to Marc, foundations can

help fill a growing funding gap with

regard to Roma issues. While bilateralgovernment aid is rapidly decreasing,

there is a widespread assumption that

EU Structural Funds are filling the gap.

But this is not true. The result is thatthe Roma are falling in between the

cracks, says Marc. Moreover, EU funds

are difficult to use as they lack flexibility,

making it a challenge to direct these

funds to Roma at community level.

More partners

Given the current modest level of

foundation support, is NEF seeking

to attract more foundations to its REF

group? And given that most funders

are in Western Europe, should the

Fund expand to the West? Its our

aspiration to bring others on board,

but we dont want to jump, cautions

Jones. Before we try to attract other

European foundationswe need to

have a better picture of how the Fund is

working, so that we can convince others

of the strategic importance of the Fund

in bringing about strategic change.

The best time for such stocktaking,

says Jones, will be a meeting planned

for December 2007 to review REFs

progress.

The evaluation process has in fact

already begun. The first year was theyear of starting the programme. Now

we have 70 projects. This year is the year

of evaluation, explains Marc. Vivien

Gyuris, responsible for partnerships

and donor coordination at REF, notes

that the Fund is already producing

very substantial research and policy

advice, including a study in Hungary

showing the economic benefits of

Roma integration, and is carrying out

comprehensive country assessments.She adds that every three months REF

sends monitoring missions to the field

to check on its projects. 75% of our

projects are completely on track, says

Marc.

Westward expansion is a possibility,

but governments must have an Action

Plan in place, as noted above. The

big distance between Roma family

culture and formal education systems

is the same across Europe, as Petry

points out, so the West could learnfrom what is being done in Central

and Eastern Europe. It is worth noting

that the majority of Europes Roma are

now in the EU. What would Marc tell a

foundation interested in Roma issues?

First, there are very interesting projects

that are ready to be funded; second,

you need to work in dialogue with

national governments; and third, most

issues that foundations deal with (e.g.

education, health, human rights) are

serious concerns for the Roma, so dont

forget the Roma when working on theseissues.

The Roma tend to be neglected, but

REF is trying to change that with the

help of foundations and other actors.

In April 2007, REF organised a major

conference on Roma education in

Budapest in collaboration with the

Hungarian government. It was attended

by the Hungarian prime minister, the

EU commissioner for education and

culture, education ministers and other

high officials from the Decade countries,REF donor organisations, and a range of

experts. In the words of Christian Petry,

the Roma felt that they had been taken

seriously."

Nyegosh Dube, EFC

For more information, go to:

www.romaeducationfund.hu

REF programme officer Beata Olahova visiting a Roma settlement in Slovakia

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