Within research phase of the project “Building a stronger civil society to boost efforts on educational inclusion of Roma” three focus groups were implemented, taking place in Vinica on 24.03.2017, Kumanovo on 03.04.2017 and Skopje on 23.03.2017.

The focus groups served the need to understand crucial issues with regards to CSO’s professional’s training needs on competences and skills, as well as to obtain a deeper insight into the problem of exclusion of Roma children from mainstream education.

The pool of participants was a multidisciplinary set of persons from the field of education inclusion of Roma, relevant actors and stakeholders including: local CSOs working in the field of Roma; teachers and directors of elementary schools; representatives of social work centres and education sector on local level, as well as Roma parents. Their open approach and willigness to share their opinion and perspective generated fruitful discussion, enriched by personal examples and existing obstacles for  educational inclusion that children, institutions and other stakeholders are facing.