Save the Children helps fight school abandonment

Newsroom 05/11/2010 | 15:46

To counter school abandonment, which a 2009 report found has risen in Romania in recent years, Save the Children has launched the national program Centers for Orientation and Resources for Inclusive Education – Complex Educational Services. Co-financed with European Funds, it aims to help disadvantaged children learn more about the need to go to school.

The project, which was started in August, with a total value of nearly RON 20 million, is not solely aimed at children at risk of dropping out of school or who have already done so, but their parents and teachers as well. In the three years of implementation, the project should help 7,680 children integrate and achieve equality in the mainstream education system through the Second Chance project, and graduate from junior high school. It also aims to raise awareness of the issue among 24,000 people.

Some 32 centers will be established across Romania. This year’s Christmas Trees Festival will, in line with tradition, raise funds to support the Romanian education system.

On the same note, World Vision NGO’s program, “I Want to go to the Ninth Grade” (“Vreau in clasa a noua”), through the campaign “Donate one RON, build my future!” (“Doneaza un leu, cladeste viitorul meu!”) developed by KFC, Pizza Hut and PHD, has raised RON 230,000 for 170,000 children in rural areas, to help them attend high school.