Our amazing team of regulars and part-time volunteers are committed to helping others. We take our convictions and turn them into action. Roma Support Nottingham is run by Diana Blaj (CEO) and Gabriela Gagiulescu (Treasurer) We are both unpaid volunteers.
Seeing a way to help, Roma Support was set up in 2015, Diana Blaj formed the organization to provide sensible solutions and practical help for Roma families living and working in Nottingham that are in real need
We focus on making the maximum positive effort for our community. We deal with everyday needs that the Roma community face on a daily basis, School, work, health, we help Roma families access the help they deserve.
Living in the United Kingdom for over 10 years and moving to Nottingham 6 years ago, Diana had the vision to set up "IDEEA ROM" AKA Roma Support Nottingham. "I just can't sit by when families need my help"
We link up Roma families that need to access school places and higher education. We work with local schools and Nottingham City Council 'school services' offering a place where families can meet school services face to face. Education is the future for Roma children and we do everything we can to get Roma kids into school, help them when school goes wrong for them and help schools liaise with families in a more meaningful way.
We all know its very hard to navigate 'UC' even if English is your first language, so imagine if you can not speak the language and don't know how the Universal credit system works!.
We provide help to fill in forms and online applications and help iron out any issues with paperwork and get the benefits the Roma families need and are entitled too.
We help families with hospital GP appointments, repeat prescriptions, We speak for them and make sure we signpost them to the right services so they can get basic help with everyday health needs along with long standing illness and even deaths (repatriation back to Romania)
With all 'hard to reach' communities, knife crime and general crime can be an issue. We do our very best to guide the Roma youth and alert them of the outcome of getting involved in 'crime'. We currently have no funding for this important project and would like to do more to help the Roma kids living in Notts.
During the Corona Virus outbreak in Nottingham we tried to do our very best for the Roma families hard hit by the virus. We joined forces with other Nottingham Charities and agencies to delivery help directly into the community
The Roma in Nottingham are a very 'hard to reach' community, language and culture can be a major barrier. So we delivered Nottingham City Council messages and help with 'lock down' rules, translation the sometimes complicated legislation and new rules, helping to keep our familes safe and in the loop.
The Roma communities are already hard hit when it comes to work in Nottingham, often taking the lowest paid jobs, zero hour contracts and bosses that use and abuse. So we helped them navigate the complicated UC system and getting them access to funds to keep food on the table and rents paid.
Although we are not a food bank, during the crisis we gained access to food and was able to get much needed food to really hard hit families, families with no food in the house and hungry mouths to feed
As lock down kicked in we got our hands on activity packs including balls, games, stationary and got this out to the most in need. The smiles was worth the effort. for the kids it was fun and for the mum and dads it was good to see happy faces. .
In the first few weeks we had many families with major health needs running out of medication, some were life saving medicines that were needed. So we arranged for repeats prescriptions and many other medical needs were sorted. . .
For those of you now in research mode looking into how 'Corona' affected the 'BAME' communities we would like to let you know... That most of the 'Roma' who presented in a Notts Hospitals, presented as 'Romanian'. The Roma (Romanian Roma) living and working in Nottingham hold a Romanian passport!
We would like to introduce Cosmin Vlad, our first Roma ambassador in Nottingham. The aim of this project is to feed in usable skills into the Roma community and create role models for young Roma kids and a strong point of contact for Roma families to deliver information and messages about Corona.
We recently got some national coverage from the Independent newspaper. From coronavirus to the hostile environment, the chronically overlooked Roma community has been completely abandoned
We have ties of kinship which help us even during times like this. But we also need the government and local authorities to do a lot more than they currently are, writes Mihai Calin Bica
Your support and contribution of £100 will enable us to meet our goals and improve conditions of kids in Nottingham. Your generous donation will fund our mission to get a device to every child that needs one.. We can source a laptop or tablet '2nd hand' with every donation.
If your an organisation that would benefit from understanding the Roma ways and culture then we can offer a bespoke session just for you. we will tailor the session to whats most important and help give you better tools to deal with Roma families.
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