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UNICEF: 300,000 Romanian children do not go to school, while half of them live in poverty or at the limit of subsistence.
300,000 children in Romania, out of a number of four million, do not go to school at present, and half of the minors live in poverty or are at the limit of subsistence, shows a study made by UNICEF Romania.
" ‘The rate of early leaving the school is 19%, the rate of young people and adolescents outside the education, training or occupation system is approximately 18% and the number of children outside the education system was almost 300,000. The study showed the fact that, unfortunately, approximately half of the children are exposed to the risk of poverty, 60,000 are separated from their families and 10% of the pregnancies happen during adolescence’ Sandie Blanchet, the UNICEF representative in Romania.
In 2014 the pilot project ‘ Social inclusion through integrated services at the level of the community – Community services for children’ with financing through Norwegian funds and from UNICEF resources.With this pilot project it was possible to have 57 social assistants trained, 36 medical nurses, seven sanitation mediators, 36 school counsellors, 27school mediators. They identified approximately 19,000 children with different vulnerabilities.Minors either were not recorded in the system of medical assistance or they were in risk of being separated from their families, or they were on the point of leaving school, or in most situations, they lived in difficult environments, in small houses, one or two rooms which they shared with up to 8 and 10 members of the family.
The total cost for the implementation of the project ‘ Social inclusion by fusion of integrated services at the level of the community – Community services for children’ was of approximately 5.3 million euro.
The pilot programme shows that the state should allocate, annually, the sum of 100 euro for each child, so that all minors benefit from social, informational and educational support, so that they could finalised their courses and not be separated from the families.
The UNICEF representatives estimate that the project could be included, at the level of the whole country until 2020, and until then, together with the Government of Romania the harmonisation of the legislation will be achieved so that accountability for the local authorities will be obtained and the ministry of work, finances and European funds will look for ways of financing of those programmes for the support of the children.