Social development: equity and progress for the Roma population - Corina Cace

The book highlights regional specificities in terms of employment, education, vocational training regarding the situation of the Roma population.

The present study starts with an analysis about the development context in four development regions in southern Romania: South-East, South-Muntenia, South-West Oltenia and Bucharest-Ilfov. The role of contextualisation is to outline the modalities of intervention through applied projects that contribute to increasing access to the labour market for the Roma population. Are these measures effective and responsive to the needs of the Roma population or does the lack of appropriateness to the specificity of the population lead to poor results? The evaluative research tries to offer explanations about how training courses for the Roma minority are carried out and their results. This approach has focussed on vocational training as an important element of access to the labour market and how, in the same time, vocational and continuing training might be the foundation for finding quality jobs. Education and vocational training are the key factors for social improvement, seen as one of the few opportunities with potential for success, for example qualifications for as many Roma as possible, coherent programmes for basic education and Roma specific jobs.

The findings show that an integrated approach is the desirable way that contributes to increasing the chances of labour market inclusion and therefore to the social development of Roma communities in Romania.