Nevo Parudimos

Nevo Parudimos Association it’s a nonprofit apolitical organization which was founded by a group of teachers, Roma activists and Roma students from Caras-Severin county, in the south-west of Romania in 2008. The aim of the Nevo Parudimos association is to decrease the economic, social, educational and cultural differences in the society. Objectives of the Nevo Parudimos association are: - To develop activities which promote democracy; - To promote tolerance, diversity and equal chances in the society; - To create community development programs to fight against prejudices towards Roma people; - To increase the organizational capacity of Roma people; - To help Roma communities to develop their own competences and abilities to solve problems; - To develop professional, social, cultural, economic activities and civic commitment. Our activities are split in more fields like: education, culture, social work, community development, human rights, youth work and volunteering. In the youth work field our activities are in most cases connected with the other activities of the NGO. Until now we have implemented 16 Youth in Action/Erasmus + projects as coordinators and we have on going other 6 from which 3 are strategic partnerships one on youth and two on adult education and one it’s an EVS project. All our youth projects have as beneficiary disadvantaged young people: Roma young people, youth from foster care, youngsters from rural area and youth coming from very poor communities. We were involved as partners until now in more than 70 youth projects, where we sent participants with fewer opportunities coming from very poor and disadvantage communities from small groups up to 35 people groups. Nevo Parudimos is a member of more national and international youth networks: - Youth Express Network – member since 2011 - YES Forum – member since 2010 - Roma Civic Alliance from Romania - ternYpe European Roma Youth Network – funding member since 2015 - Phiren Amenca – member since 2014 - European Roma Grassroots Organization Network – associated member since 2015 Our expertise is well known and recognized in disadvantaged young people’s inclusion projects. Nevo Parudimos in” Roma Youth European Youth” projects 1, 2 and 3-evaluation has developed a guide for the youth workers regarding Roma youngsters „9 steps in working with Roma youngsters”, guide which now is used at international level by all our partners. Beside this our work with disabled young people in the last years was recognized as a very important and quality one, the project "Yes we can!" being promoted by the Romanian National Agency as a good practice. We promote inclusion in different ways: using arts in theater related projects, developing citizenship especially for the young people from Rural areas, by developing voluntary work and increasing participation. Also we have a great expertise in educational projects, a big part of the members and staff of Nevo Parudimos being also teachers which work with Roma kids or in very disadvantaged communities. Another important area of expertise of our NGO is the civic involvement and voluntary work which was extended from the youth department also to the social and community development departments, one of our project being nominated as finalist to Erste Stiftung Social Inclusion Projects Award (For a kid smile- rehabilitation of the child section of the municipal Hospital from Caransebes) In the last four years, we developed a constant activity together with our international partners in the field of education for remembrance being one of the organized of more big international events aim to promote the recognition of the Roma holocaust. The most important activity in this direction was the meeting of 1000 Roma and non Roma youngsters from all around the world (25 countries) organized in 2014 in Krakov, Poland in partnership with tenYpe and Phiren Amenca. In all our activities, we try to give space to the members of disadvantage communities and especially to Roma communities to be heard and to express their needs as equal citizens. Nevo Parudimos association has a big expertise in the flowing fields: - Education – promoting education in the rural areas, poor communities and in Roma communities, work with the parents, training for teachers and development of afterschool activities for the kids in order to increase the interest of the kids for the school. In this field, we are working very close to schools, with school mediators and teachers but also with the parents of those kids. We have developed a website which promotes education and gives information for the youngsters about scholarships and educational programs of the institutions, Universities and NGO’s – www.aceslaeducatie.ro This website was developed in the project “Education, a chance for the future” founded by the youth in action program. Also in the project “Second chance a new chance” we have developed two manuals with best practices for teachers that develop activities after school, summer kindergarten, second chance education, extra scholastic activities. www.a2sansa.ro . In this field since 3 years we are running a day center were the kids from a ghetto community from Resita (Mociur) are making homework’s for school and having each day a meal. - Youth work with Roma youth and inclusion: starting from 2010 we have implemented until now 3 youth in action projects “Roma Youth European Youth”, “Roma Youth European Youth 2” and “Roma Youth European Youth 3 - Evaluation”, projects in which together with our international partners (18 partners) we developed a guide “9 steps in working whit Roma youngsters” which offer information’s and present different working methods to be used during the work with Roma youngsters in different projects. Also during all our youth projects until now we have built two play grounds for the kids from the Roma neighborhood, we offered the possibility to take part to youth exchanges for 428 youngsters in the last two years majority of them coming from a disadvantage background and Roma youngsters and 36 youth workers and volunteers took part to international trainings from our partners. In the last two years we have implemented 7 Erasmus + 4 exchanges, two multi-measure projects and one EVS, all related to inclusion and Roma youngsters. Also we have a very developed youth department which involves more than 100 youngsters from all the Caras-Severin area. In this field, we assisted different youth groups to organize and develop activities and we supported the funding of 6 youth NGO’s in our area. - Voluntary work and inclusion: in the past years, we have developed more projects which promotes volunteering. The most important ones are “For a kid smile - rehabilitation of the child section of the municipal Hospital from Caransebes” nominated as finalist to Erste Stiftung Social Inclusion Projects Award; Rehabilitation of the child section of the County hospital from Resita were two projects that promoted social inclusion of the Roma people using as a method the voluntary work. Another important project that promoted voluntary work and inclusion is “Volunteering for all” project which was founded by the youth in action program and which has as result founding a youth voluntary NGO called Volunteering for all. Now we host constantly 10 EVS volunteers that are involved in projects in Resita and in Milcoveni, near Oravita and we coordinate the online EVS platform www.voluntarii.ro. We also started hosting volunteers coming with the French Civic Service. - Remembrance of the Roma holocaust: since 4 years ago we started in organizing together with ternYpe and Phiren Amenca, two Roma international youth networks commemoration events for Roma and non Roma youngsters were we promote the recognition of the Roma holocaust and the education for remembrance. The most important result of this partnerships is the fact that in 2014 we brought together 1000 youngsters (200 from Romania) Roma and non Roma from 25 countries which took part in the event “dik he na bister” (www.2august.eu) and learn about Roma holocaust. This activity is now part of our yearly working plan. - Marabu Camp – in partnership with a private company we developed a youth camp that hosts educational activities in Milcoveni, Romania. The camp can host 60 people, offering full board, and in the last two years hosted 26 events all related with Erasmus plus program, trainings or exchanges that promotes inclusion, environmental protection, citizenship and human rights education.