UNICEF supports children and families in emergencies

Content Topic

Roma

Recommended resources

Roma children

Read how we work to ensure Roma children's rights to a fulfilling childhood.

Explore our work

More resources

Breaking barriers: An analytical report on Roma children and women

This report provides an overview of selected findings from the sixth round (2018–2020) of Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) conducted in Roma settlements in Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. It focuses on Roma children and women, aiming to track progress and highlight disparities within the...

Children from Roma communities in Europe face high levels of deprivation – UNICEF

GENEVA, 15 April 2024 – Children from Roma communities in four European countries and territories face a myriad of deprivation, according to a new report published today by UNICEF. Breaking barriers: An analytical report on Roma children and women in Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia notes that child...

18 December 2023

“We are human too”

Resilience, strength and charisma – these are only a few words to describe Natalia, a grandmother of six, and a carer to everyone she meets. Not long before the war in Ukraine broke out, Natasha lost her beloved daughter. In grief, and full of uncertainty, she boarded a bus from Lutsk to Warsaw, seeking safety for...

06 December 2022

Albena is now a calm and fearless student

It’s exactly 7.30 am as the bell in the only school in the small Bulgarian mountain town of Tvarditsa rings. Classes will start in a minute. A little girl with a big pink princess bag runs up the stairs, holding her mother tightly by the hand. Together, they walk up to the classroom and give each other a hug, then...

15 November 2022

A paint brush to remember Roma history

Gabriela, 17, sits on the patio of her grandparent’s house, located on the outskirts of Bucharest, Romania. It’s a warm and sunny day. With a brush in her hand, she retouches the lines of an artwork she started the evening before. She frequently dips the brush in a pot of blue paint and brushes it gently across th...

01 February 2022

European Child Guarantee: A unique opportunity for the social inclusion of Roma children

Early childhood education and care in the European Child Guarantee, Webinar — 7 April 2022 14:00 - 16:00 CET Early childhood education and care in the European Child Guarantee, 21 February 2022, 10.00-12.00 CET, Conference organised in coordination with the French Presidency of the Council of European Union An es...

12 January 2022

Education pathways in Roma settlements: Understanding inequality in education and learning

Empowering Roma children through inclusive, quality education is a key agenda for international communities to promote equity and social inclusion. However, Roma are not a homogeneous group—they differ in socio-economic situations and thus have different educational experiences and outcomes. Using household data ...

05 November 2021

"Just like participants, I also enriched a relationship with my own family”

For the success of the workshops Growing Up Together Count Us In Plus, in addition to the educators and families who are participants in the program, great credit goes to Growing Up Together activists, Roma cultural mediators, also called RAZA. They are assistants from the Roma community who help educators to esta...

Going for a vaccination with my cousin Emina

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt, it just stings a little. It’s easier if you look the other way,” says Emina to Irma as they fix each other’s hair. This is an important day for Irma Fafulić, who has already prepared a clothing combination to wear and asks us to wait for her while she changes in another room. Both gi...

01 October 2019

Support for an easier beginning for Roma children

“I have everything I need. I wish we had electricity in the new house, so that I could study and read at night as well. I have good grades. I like the English language classes the most. When I grow up I’ll be a hairdresser. There is a secondary school for that in Pirot”, says Anja, a smiling and cheerful eleven-ye...

Renata goes to school… and stays in school

Divorced and forced to move back in with her parents and younger sister is not how 24-year-old Randunica had pictured her life. Before leaving school in the ninth grade, her dream was to become a psychologist. “Unfortunately, it’s not custom for Roma girls to go to other towns like Nisporeni or Chisinau to study,”...

17 December 2017

Improving access to basic services among the Roma community in Kosovo (UNSCR 1244)

It’s a chilly morning when 11-year-old Mirlinda wakes up in her family’s tiny apartment in Plemetina, Kosovo (UNSCR 1244). Its 9AM as she leaves home, and she’s happy because she is going to ‘The Centre’. Smoke rises high above from the funnels of the nearby power stations, she meanders the roads littered with p...