Kamberi: We include about 400 preschool Roma children each year

Mabera Kamberi, representative of the MLSP, at the CIVIL debate “At the ‘ball'” for the human rights of the Roma, focused on the inclusion of Roma children in the education system.

I would start with preschool education, which is part of the MLSP. We have been implementing this project since 2006 in cooperation with the Roma Education Fund and the local self-government units. Annually we include about 400 Roma children of preschool age. Last year it was harder because of the pandemic with Covid-19. This year, more than 29,000 children have been enrolled in kindergartens, of which 347 children are Roma and 89 children are involved through the project. The parents of the children are exempt from paying for the children’s stay. Every year we strive to increase the number of cities where this project is implemented.

In 2019 we had a public call to register people not registered in the birth register, because we really wanted to know the number, because NGOs came out with a number of 5000 people, we formed mobile teams, and we found about 700 people in the field who are not recorded in the birth register. Because for several years the problem with the existing laws that are in force could not be solved, we drafted a new law for those 700 people, for their issuance of a special birth certificate and ID card, with which they can exercise 4 rights: the right to social protection, health care, the right to employment and the right to education