Mind the gap! – Facilitating access to and take up of Youth Guarantee measures by Roma youth in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania
Period of implementation: September 2017 – August 2019
Across the EU, policy makers and stakeholders are paying increasing attention to labor market (re-)integration of vulnerable people, especially that of young people of minority/migrant groups. The reason behind is the alarming level of youth unemployment that, in the countries in focus, is above the EU average.
The project sets out to address the problem of young Roma’s integration on the labor market by means of the national and EU funded Youth Guarantee schemes, whose implementation started in the last three-four years in all of the three countries.
While there is some public information available on the national Youth Guarantee programs, there is scarce knowledge with respect to its outreach to Roma youth. The objective of the project is to advocate for a more effective and non-discriminatory implementation of the array of measures under the Youth Guarantee umbrella for Roma youth.
To this aim, the consortium will:
i) critically assess the national Youth Guarantee measures’ outreach to Roma youth;
ii) map local stakeholders in 10 localities in each country;
iii)identify institutional barriers, drivers and good practices;
iv) facilitate local partnerships between a sample of local PES offices and potential non-government stakeholders and equip them with knowledge on the existing policy, monitoring framework and potential future financing opportunities.
The long-term goal of the project is to create synergies among the EU development funds.
Donor: Open Society Institute