One of the biggest challenges the Dom community is facing is the high dropout rate of schools of Dom children. It is estimated that some 60 % of Dom children do not finish their basic education.

Very often the children are not doing well at school, due to stigmatization and no attention of the teachers, no encouragement of the parents or other reasons, and the parents prefer to send their children to the street to beg or sell small items to support the families financially. This will result in another generation of illiterate people, with no opportunities to break the cycle of poverty and marginalization.

Domari or gypsy children from the Dom community in East Jerusalem, both the old city and the Shua'fat refugee camp where the majority of the Dom people live.

Our Educational Program’s focus is on basic education for Dom children. The children will receive practical school assistance during the school year

Tutoring is one of our main activities, and it has its successes.

Two years ago, our first girl participant started her education at the university. She was one of the children who came to the tutoring lessons some eight years ago, as a little girl and now she is in her third year of university. More children are staying in school to finish at least their basic education, because they get better grades. We have three more girls who almost finished High School and we hope that they also will join higher education. Thanks to the tutoring lessons, more children are doing well at school; therefore they like school more and are able to finish the school.

 Goal

 What do you want to achieve 

The overall goal of the project is:

Domari children in East Jerusalem have better school results, which will prevent them from dropping out and give them better vocational changes in the future.

Short-term:

The school results of the Dom children joining the tutoring lessons will improve.

 Long term:

The Domari children will have a better future due to a better education, which will give them (better) follow-up and/or job opportunities for the future.

We will measure this by monitoring their school results via the school and parents. We are in regular contact with teachers and parents via (home) visits.

The long-term results are also measurable. We monitor how many of our children who joined the tutoring lessons will enroll in follow-up education and/or will have good jobs.