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• Advice ...Advice and Advocacy
• Health ...Health Projects
• Education ...Education Support
• Social ...Social Inclusion
• Media ...Media Project
• Culture ...Roma Culture Participation
• Training ...Roma Training Schemes
• Mentoring ...Mentoring Project

Advice and Advocacy Project

The Advice and Advocacy Project is run on the basis of appointments, drop–in sessions and outreach. Presently we offer support to over 850 Roma Refugee & migrant families. We provide assistance and support to hundreds families families from Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Romania and Bosnia. Our clients are mainly based in the London Borough of Newham, Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Barking and Dagenham, Haringey, Lambeth, Erith, Croydon, Hammersmith and Fulham, Ealing and Brent. Our office is situated in Newham due to the fact that the majority of our clients are residents of this borough. Our advice work covers the following areas: access to welfare, housing, employment issues, money management and debt. In addition to that over 100 families receive our support from our outreach centre in White City.

The Project enables Roma refugees and migrants to overcome some of the barriers, which they face in their process of integration with the wider society, while empowering them to play a greater role in their communities.

Since July 2008 we also run a dedicated Advice Service for Roma refugees and migrants, who are residents of L.B. Newham. We deliver this aspect of our Advice & Advocacy Project as a member of the Newham Advice Consortium.

Roma Elder People’s Advice & Information Project

Roma Elder People’s Advice Project started in January 2008 and its aim is to offer the advice & information support for elderly Roma refugees and migrants who live in London.

The Project is run from our office in East London and outreach base in White City and it is accessed through appointments and outreach visits to the ill and most vulnerable service users.

Advice support addresses the following issues: a/ access to welfare provisions; b/ housing & options for independent living; c/ debt & financial management; d/ access to health provisions; d/ ways to reduce dependency on families and personal safety, etc.

By providing a dedicated Advice & Information Service for elderly Roma, the Project works towards the following objectives:

• Reducing the numbers of elderly Roma living in poverty and suffering from the effects of destitutions;
• Improving the health and wellbeing of elderly Roma;
• Reducing the isolation of loneliness of elderly Roma and enhancing their self-esteem.

Roma Elder People’s Advocacy Project

The Roma Elderly Advocacy Project focuses on empowering elder Roma refugees and migrants through a 1-2-1 and group advocacy service. The Project aims to address social inequality and exclusion of Roma elders by ensuring that their individual and collective voice is heard, rights are secured and that they can make choices in matters, which affect the quality of their lives, thus enhancing their independence. The Project also involves Roma elders in self-advocacy so they can represent their needs, rights and expectations at a policy level, linking with agencies from statutory, voluntary organisations and relevant government departments.

Roma elders are supported in: a/making choices about how they access and receive service; b/ asserting and securing their rights; understanding procedures and policies and representing their views; c/ playing more active role in the community through peer and group advocacy forum; informing and influencing policy makers in relation to their needs and aspirations.