22/12/2015
FSG
Reproduction of the text:
“2015 sees the completion of 15 years of the Acceder programme, an ESF initiative managed in Spain by the Fundación Secretariado Gitano as part of the Operational Programme Fight Against Discrimination (2000-2006, 2007-2013). In 2000, this programme represented an innovative step towards the inclusion of the Roma as employees in the labour market, and since then this very successful initiative has served as a model across Europe. The results have been excellent: nearly 90,000 participants; 23,918 have gained access to a job; 62,334 employment contracts; and 27,059 people trained in 3,340 courses. All this has been achieved through the good faith and collaboration of 20,924 companies.
This is one of Acceder´s strong points: the close ties of the programme with the labour market and with companies. It is not only a training programme, but also a programme providing access to employment, and for this reason its participants are trained within the companies themselves. The programme has created a close public-private partnership: a strategic alliance between the bodies of public administration (more than 100 across Spain) at all levels which co-finance the programme, the business sector and the non-profit sector. This last sector is represented by a professional organisation, specialised in working with the Roma, enabled to manage European funds efficiently and able to deliver projects with excellent results.
Acceder owes its impact primarily to its ambitious, large-scale design. While it operates nationwide, it is implemented locally, through 50 teams across Spain. This has permitted the programme to have a direct impact on the living conditions of the whole Roma community. This impact is seen not only in its numerical results, but also in the change of mentality within the Roma community regarding employment, especially among women and young people. It is also demonstrated by the change in perceptions and expectations of companies and public administrative bodies towards programmes directed at the Roma. The Acceder programme has shown that it is both profitable and socially beneficial to invest in the inclusion of the Roma community.
Furthermore, with the application of the “explicit but not exclusive” approach, the programme has been able to concentrate on Roma, responding to their specific needs without excluding other vulnerable groups. As a starting point, Roma find themselves excluded from the labour market, owing not only to a serious lack of initial qualifications and a lack of employment role models, but also to the rejection and discrimination Roma face. For this reason, although Acceder is an employment programme, it applies an integrated approach covering measures on education (tackling the school dropout rate); social inclusion; awareness-raising; combating discrimination; and advocacy to promote policies which are effective in tackling inequality among Roma.
All of this has made Acceder a model across Europe among policies aimed at the social inclusion of the most disadvantaged groups”.
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