No more lost generations – EU and Save the Children join efforts to reduce early school dropout rate

The project “Bright4All – Basic Right to Education for All Children in Bosnia-Herzegovina”, funded by the European Union through the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights in the amount of EURO 350,000, was officially launched in Sarajevo on 19 May 2017.

The primary goal of the project is to reduce early school dropout rate in Bosnia and Herzegovina through identification of its scale and scope and to support local communities in development of mechanisms to prevent this practice, especially among vulnerable children, including Roma children, children with disabilities and children from rural areas.

Education is a fundamental human right. It is also the primary vehicle to allow economically and socially marginalized children and adults to lift themselves out of poverty and participate fully in their communities. The EU is fully committed to continue promoting education and social inclusion,” stated Head of Operations Section for Social Development, Civil Society and Cross-Border Cooperation at the EU Delegation to BiH Massimo Mina.

Every child has a right to quality and accessible education. Nevertheless, fragmented and complex system in Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the causes for discrimination and drop in quality of education.

Some of the issues that education in BiH is facing, and which were taken into consideration for the development of BRIGTH4ALL project, will be addressed through this intervention, such as the phenomena of education drop-out, especially among vulnerable groups of children, increase in costs of formal and informal education, lack of reliable and specific data on education drop-out and weak capacities of local CSOs to get involved in the promotion of the basic right to education for all children,” indicated on the occasion of the project launch director of Save the Children in North West Balkans Andrea Zeravcic.

Project activities include an action research which will map the existing situation in relation to early education drop-out, as well as the provision of services to children from vulnerable groups for the prevention of education drop-out. Project partners are local CSOs: Youth Centre ‘Vermont’ Brčko and Association ‘Žene sa Une’ Bihać.

Europa.ba