Opportunity Center Valaska - AYR

Association of Young Roma (AYR) Mission: The principal goal of AYR is to unify intellectual potential of young Roma generation and directly help with social and work inclusion in society. The philosophy is based on systematic and long-term influence on Roma population through various projects and programmes. AYR was founded on January 21, 1999 as a non-governmental organization. The subject of the activity is coordination of educational - preventive programs in the field of education, employment, health and social activities for health and socially disadvantaged groups of the population. The projects address current social problems (unemployment, poverty, various types of discrimination, and the protection and application of human rights and freedoms of disadvantaged population groups. AYR owns a building, where we built the Horehronie Multifunctional Community Center. HMCC serves to solve the social situation of the Roma and provides specialized social assistance. In our EDU center, we run various educational projects and workshops. At the same time, AYR social facilities of AYR are currently employing socially and health disadvantaged people, especially Roma. The number of permanent employees is 28-35 and number of volunteers 5 to 12. AYR direction, from the long-term perspective – 2020, has 3 main key points of the fight against social exclusion and poverty eradication: Key 1 Work we do through social economy – providing the work for disadvantaged groups of citizenry: MRC, women after maternity leave, people above 50 years of age, physically challenged, single mothers and fresh absolvents. Part of the activity is the lobbing for legislative changes, development of social enterprises and establishment of new ones – shift of AYR know-how to others, following of functional models. Key 2 Provision of non-formal education with focus on young Roma people - practical position /assistant of teacher, health assistant, field social worker, community worker/ skills and competencies are being developed. Key 3 Professional advisory services via Social and Community work. Provision of services and assistance for community serves in the direction of the development of Community center. Our intention is to be able to provide other organizations and locations with our know-how and applicable models of Comm. Centers coordination.