It is a European aid organisation based in Germany. The initiative is co-funded by the European Union.

This is an important step towards strengthening the voice and representation of Roma children and young people across different countries, and our organization will play a key role in implementing this initiative in Ukraine.

Organizations from Greece (KEAN), Serbia (Center for Youth Integration), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Nova Generacija) are also part of the project. Its main goal is to ensure that Roma girls have real opportunities to influence the decisions that affect their lives.

To align the project’s main objectives and discuss its strategic vision, an international meeting recently took place in Berlin, bringing together our partners from OlamAid as well as representatives of the participating organizations. From Voice of Romni, the project manager for this initiative is Zinaida Prokopenko.

“Over the two days in Germany, we discussed how to cooperate effectively across countries, build joint campaigns, and ensure the project remains sustainable and impactful in the long term. Beyond the working sessions, informal interaction was equally important: we had the chance to get to know our partners better, exchange experiences and ideas, and this will help us implement the project more effectively at the local level,” Zina says.

During the visit, she spoke about the state of children’s rights and the situation of the Roma community in Ukraine, the key challenges we are addressing, and our experience in supporting women and young people through advocacy and educational initiatives. Throughout the implementation of the project, our organization will work directly with children and young people. It is important for us to establish children’s councils and Civic Labs, where teenagers will be able to develop their own initiatives for their communities and, most importantly, ensure the meaningful participation of Roma girls in decision-making processes.

The project also includes training on children’s rights and democracy, workshops on advocacy and public speaking, a programme for young Roma facilitators, the development of manuals and guides, and dialogues with local authorities.

Our team will also work on shadow reports — analytical documents prepared by civil society organizations that provide an independent assessment of the situation in the country and complement official state statistics and reporting. Such reports make it possible to gain a fuller and more balanced picture by taking into account the experience and observations of civil society.

We believe this project will help highlight the real needs of the Roma community in Ukraine, create new opportunities for Roma children, strengthen youth leadership, and provide tools to influence decision-making. The ultimate outcome of this initiative should be systemic change within communities.

We already have experience working with OlamAid, as it was with their support that we opened the Protection and Inclusion Hive in Zaporizhzhia. That is why we are confident this partnership will also be effective and deliver meaningful results.