Activities to fight the discrimination against ethnic minorities, especially the Roma, will be held in 20 communities from 15 districts. The activities form part of a program with European funding that was launched in Chisinau on February 23. This will last for three years until 2020 and has a budget of €400,000, IPN reports.

The project is implemented by the Representative Office of the Swiss Foundation “Terre des hommes” in Moldova. Parents and children from the involved communities will be questioned about their perceptions and attitudes to ethnic minorities. There will be created an Academy of the Youth that will promote human rights through social activism and a network of 200 children - agents of change, who will contribute to promoting tolerance, diversity and inclusion by the social theater method.

At the same time, representatives of the minorities will be taught to demand that their rights be respected. The communities will be encouraged to facilitate the ethnic minorities’ access to social services. “Terre des hommes” Moldova will work out programs and training materials and the goods practices of the project will be disseminated for being implemented nationwide.

According to studies presented by UNICEF, only half of the Romany children aged between 7 and 15 from Moldova go to school. The Romany parents prefer to keep their children at home as these are exposed to discrimination at school. This is one of the reasons of school abandonment among the Romany children. The cases of discrimination are seldom reported by the authorities as the Roma do not trust these and do not know mechanisms by which they can claim rights.