The overall objective of this Operation is to increase social inclusion in the densely Roma populated areas especially by facilitating their entrance into formal labour market (with social insurance coverage). Within this framework, the purposes of this operation are as follows:

• to improve the quality of delivery of education/VET/LLL, health, employment and social protection and social assistance services provided to the target groups,
• to increase the coordination among different public service providers,
• to increase social harmony/cohesion by enhancing the knowledge and awareness for social inclusion of the target group,
• to increase target groups’ access to and demand for public services,ı
• to increase the employability of target groups.

The disadvantaged persons who are in poverty or at risk of poverty and the people living in slums highly populated with Roma Communities and nomads are defined as the target groups of the Operation.

The operation will be implemented in 12 pilot provinces by taking into account the recommendations of the workshop called “Roma Children and Education” organized with the partition of several Roma NGOs by MoNE on 18-19 February 2011: Ankara, Adana, Balıkesir, Hatay, Edirne, Eskişehir, İstanbul, İzmir, Kırklareli, Manisa, Mersin and Tekirdağ.

The Operation consists of service and supply components. Supply component designed for 20 social service centres, 20 public training centres, 44 primary and secondary schools, 20 social assistance and solidarity foundations in 12 pilot provinces is divided into six lots: IT and office equipment and electronic devices (Lot 1); furniture (Lot 2); musical and art instrument (Lot 3); sports equipment (Lot 4); stationery and child play supplies (Lot 5); containers (Lot 6).
With service component,

• 20 SSCUs in 12 pilot provinces became functional during project implementation.
• A TNA was conducted in 44 pilot schools for extra-curricular activities with 1.774 questionnaires.
• 6 regional District Visit Teams were established to increase health literacy (Izmir, Edirne, Adana, Ankara, 2 in Istanbul).
• 4.044 health interviews/visits were realised to the target groups (gender equality respected) in 20 Units of 12 provinces.
• 941 representatives of NGOs, local Roman opinion leaders and Roma people were trained on health literacy.
• 12 training programmes on the new local social service model were organized for the staff of the Social Service Coordination Units (SSCU) and the beneficiary DGs with 600 participants.
• A training programme of 105 representatives of Roma NGOs on the capacity building of the NGOs, the improvement of quality level and the awareness-raising concerning how to apply to the grants, empowerment of the relevant NGOs was organized.
• The new social service model was disseminated through 5-days training of trainers on the new service model for 54 civil servants of 12 provinces and of national office of the OB.
• A training of trainers’ programme was delivered to 51 trainers from co-beneficiary ministries. 3-days in-service training was provided to 1.656 civil servants.
• 193 civil servants and stakeholders’ representatives participated in workshops for Joint Action Plan and the coordination mechanism in National Roma Strategy Action Plan 2016-21.
• In-service training programme on social inclusion and combating discrimination was completed for 727 teachers in 44 pilot schools.
• Seminars on early childhood development models in 12 provinces were held with 507 participants of schools and stakeholders’ agencies.
• A training programme was delivered to 1.275 teachers of 44 pilot schools in 12 provinces for use of extra-curricular teaching programmes.
• 14 workshops were organized with stakeholders and partnering agencies with 631 participants.
• In total, 3.831 Roma attended the educational, vocational training and entrepreneurship courses. Furthermore, total 6.201 people were trained.
• The ex-ante qualitative analysis in 2016 and ex-post qualitative analysis in 2017 were conducted in 12 provinces
• “A Modular Social Inclusion Guide Book” was prepared as 4 modules (social protection, education, health plus employment as additional service) and 20.000 copies of the Guide Book were distributed to civil servants and stakeholders in 12 provinces.
• A new local social service model was developed as a result of the Operation and following documents/systems were prepared for this model: a concept paper on new social service model; a document on responsibilities and functions of SSCUs; a manual for the integrated service provision; IT Monitoring Information System with the functions of registration, tracking, reporting.
• A Joint Action Plan for the following five sectors addressed in the Strategy Paper on Roma Citizens (2016-2021) was developed: education, employment, housing, health and social assistance. 12 province Joint Action Plans were prepared with the participation of 128 local stakeholders.