Within the project “Strengthening the health of Roma women”, the National Roma Centrum had a consultative meeting on 25.07.2019 with representatives of the Public Health Program of the Foundation Open Society, Berlin and Skopje. The meeting was attended by representatives of the public health program. Marek Szilvasi a program officer with the Open Society Public Health Program, where he focuses on ethnicity and health equality and Roma health, Maja Saitovic a senior program specialist with the Open Society Public Health Program, where she works on the Roma Health Project, Suzana Velkovska Public Health Program Coordinator Foundation Open Society Macedonia and Aleksandar Markovski, Public Health Program Assistent at Foundation Open Society Macedonia.
On behalf of NRC, the Executive Director Asmet thanked the trust and the more support for strengthening and improving the health condition of the Roma woman.
During the productive discussion, the future strategic plans of NRC and the future areas of the Foundation’s activities in the direction of improving the health of the Roma in the region were discussed.
The focus of the meeting was the team closely familiar with the course of the activities, the achieved results and the possible difficulties it could face during the first year of the project’s realization, as well as for sharing thoughts on the further work and engagement of the organizations.
By the project’s team Sebihana Skenderovska, lawyer Magdalena Jakimovska, field assistant Assen Elezi, shared and exchanged information, among others were discussed the problems:
Reduction of the negative environmental impacts on health in the Roma communities due to exposure to environmentally degraded locations (waste dumps, mines and inaccessible public infrastructure).
Ensuring equity and justice for Roma communities in the distribution of public health and the benefits and damages from the environment.
Housing and education as social determinants, which largely depend on health outcomes.
Records in the register of births of persons without documents, the right to use benefits for third and fourth child (twins).
From the Mr. Marek and Mrs. Mary, it was proposed to continue the activities and to fatten the possibilities for more efficient networking, visibility and finding additional financial support from donors.
