Monitoring activities under the project "Roma Women NGOs - active participants in civil society - Shumen
The Association for Social, Cultural and Educational Development of the Minorities is currently implementing its project "Roma Women Today and Tomorrow" and organizing training courses in cooking and hairstyling.
On 9th June 2006 BFW grant-making officer Kalinka Slivkova carried out monitoring of the project activities and met the Roma women trainees in hairstyling and their trainer. She expressed her satisfaction with the responsibility and discipline of the trainees and their eagerness to learn. She added that her Roma trainees are doing just as well as any other trainees she has had, and she promised to help and support them even in the future when they start work as hairdressers.
The training course is carried out in a hairdresser's studio and afterwards the trainees practise at home with relatives and friends from the Roma community. Some of the trainees are eager to open their own hairdresser's studios and the best thing is that they all have the support of their families who encouraged them to take this course and acquire professional skills.
All Roma women trainees completed evaluation questionnaires in which they pointed out how useful this training is to them and how interested their friends are in such courses. Most of them also expressed their willingness to go on working for civil society organizations even as volunteers.
Kalinka Slivkova - Project coordinator 14th June 2006
