Lea wants to be a teacher

“When I grow up, I want to be a teacher,” six-year-old Lea from Slavonski Brod tells us a little shyly.

When she enrolled in kindergarten, Lea did not speak Croatian well because at home they use the Roma language. Apart from his daughter having learned Croatian, her father Slaven has also noticed many other changes

“There is huge progress. She is much more talkative now, she loves to sing, she has changed a lot. Lea didn’t speak Croatian, but now she is fluent. This is phenomenal,” her father Slaven tells us.

“In kindergarten, I love to paint, read and play with other children,” Lea tells us.

They did not have a kindergarten in the settlement where she is growing up. The closest one was 15 kilometres away and public transport was not very well organised. With poor awareness among parents about the importance of early education, most children from the settlement did not have the chance to go to kindergarten. Along with the training of caregivers and teachers, continuous work has been done with parents to raise awareness of the importance of kindergartens. There are also Roma teaching assistants now, a regular bus line, and suitable premises have been created in the nearby school for all children to attend kindergarten. They can now learn and develop and the foundations have been laid for them to achieve their dreams in the future.