Solution Story // Implementation Journey Ampelokipi-Menemeni The municipality of Ampelokipi-Menemeni, within the city of Thessaloniki, Greece, has had a focus on working with a specific community in the city as part of the Stay Tuned project. This is a Roma community, with a high level of very early school drop-out coupled with a range of social and economic problems, including poverty and health challenges. Ampelokipi-Menemeni’s Solution Story 01. WHAT WAS THE STARTING POINT? Magda Rousetti is responsible for the many areas that are within a municipality’s education department of the municipality of concern and that are their responsibility to Ampelokipi-Menemeni. One of the priorities address, from unemployment to poverty to for the municipality (and for the national the local economy. government in Greece) is the reduction of school drop-outs and Early Leaving from The particular challenge for Ampelokipi- Education and Training (ELET). Menemeni in terms of ELET is the high level of school drop-out within one of the city’s Roma But as with all Greek municipalities, Magda’s communities, Aghios Nektarios, within the role does not include the remit to get involved Menemeni district. in school teaching and the curriculum. The content and structure of the school day is This is one of the areas within the Stay Tuned effectively “off-limits” for the municipality network where a city is truly dealing with early and they must not interfere with these “drop-out” from school, rather than just a aspects or do work within the school. failure to attain upper secondary level qualifications – children in this community As a result, officials in corresponding positions (girls in particular) will often drop out from have typically discounted their being able to school in their very early teenage years or influence ELET and have left this exclusively to earlier. the schools. However, ELET negatively affects 02. WHAT WERE THEY WORKING TO IMPLEMENT? A team from across the municipality, was school drop-out and improving educational working on the subject including Magda success. Rousseti (Director of Social Protection, The team were also establishing a new Education, Athletics & Culture), Katerina Community Centre within the Ag. Nektarios Paschalidou (Director of the Department for community. The community centre function is Social Policy), Athanasios Papageorgiou part of a national network and programme, (General Secretariat), Anastasia Dimoka and co-funded by the EU. Fotini Pantoulari (from the Department for developing, organization, programming and However, the team had an opportunity to European programmes). define precisely what expertise they wanted to have within this service and to made a bid The team were working on a range of actions for specific additional functions to be to address the challenges within the Aghios included. They took this opportunity to tailor Nektarios community in relation to reducing the support offer to the needs of the specific community within Ag. Nektarios. Key Policy Themes for Ampelokipi-Menemeni: Target Groups Career Guidance Informal Learning and Schools as Communities 2 Ampelokipi-Menemeni’s Solution Story 03. WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES AND BARRIERS TO IMPLEMENTATION? The biggest barriers the team have always what is really going on within the district and faced with implementing the measures to what the specific problems are. support this particular community is that, whilst they can offer the right services for Overall, the fact that the municipality doesn’t supporting Roma people, the specific culture have jurisdiction over the educational and within the Roma community means that there schooling activities themselves (and is not can be resistance to real engagement: a lack allowed to interfere) they are restricted to of participation at an individual level and a working outside the classroom. Education relatively low view of education in general. policy and curriculum, teaching etc. is the Education is not a priority, so the support on domain of the national Ministry. offer is very often not taken up. This presents a challenge on local level – the Another challenge was that much of the team need to provide activities and support support on offer has typically been provided that fits in with the local school context, but well outside the local area. The “second whilst only being able to adjust one side of chance school” for example was several that equation. This requires close kilometres away, with was limited public collaboration with schools and school transport options for potential students to directors, who often have different priorities reach the school. If they did enrol, the and pressures placed on them. distance and the cost of daily travel were an ongoing disincentive to continue attending. Consequently, the municipality staff are often Students required ongoing support to remain seen as a outsiders, particularly in the district in the education system. This wasn’t a of Aghios Nektarios. This in turn means those sustainable situation. in the community are less trusting and therefore less likely to engage positively with So, whilst a lot of support was theoretically the support on offer. This completes a cycle of available, it wasn’t well targeted and not challenging circumstances, whereby the root always very accessible to those in the of the social challenges are essentially the community who needed it. same issues as the implementation challenges: the difficulties in getting the The municipality have never been able to community to engage are the cause of the employ people within the community initial problems and also make structures and hence have always relied on implementation of (good) interventions much the school directors and school functions to more difficult. provide intelligence and understanding about Key Implementation Challenges for Ampelokipi-Menemeni: IC2 – Stakeholder Engagement IC1 – Maintaining an Integrated Approach 3 Ampelokipi-Menemeni’s Solution Story 04. WHAT WAS THEIR DELIVERY APPROACH? HOW DID THEY TACKLE THE BARRIERS? When the team managed to get the As the Roma Department of the Community community centre established within the Ag. Centre is based within the district, the staff Nektarios community, this provided a major was seen less and less as “outsiders”. This opportunity to take a different approach to helped them gain the trust of the community. engaging with those most at risk (or those From that point, it was much easier to with most potential to gain from being approach them. That was a great advantage as supported). the educational specialist could start to work with them and “nudge” them towards Suddenly, they had people working day-to- (re)engaging with education. day in the community, on the ground. They were interacting directly with people from One lever used by the team was that of the within the community, rather than going “Social Solidarity Allowance” – the state through proxies (where messages may get support money received by those on a low (or distorted or watered-down). Prior to that no) income. However, in Greece there is a point, there was much less first-hand condition that people can only receive this evidence of the challenges: the team had allowance if they have completed compulsory been aware of the general problems, but they school. Close working with the community didn’t have specific data or hands-on made it obvious that being able to get this observations to back that up. It was largely allowance was important to many of them – anecdotal. so this was used as an incentive ; a “carrot”… Stay engaged in education and you can secure Soon, Vasso Vatali (the educational specialist your future allowance. who had meanwhile joined the team) and colleagues were working directly with the Re-engaging with education was a big step for community. A much more nuanced picture of many in this community. But the reward of the local people and the problems they accessing the Allowance was clear and experienced was starting to build. The team tangible and, most importantly, did not could therefore start to create a better idea of require a change of mindset to be an exactly what support might be needed and incentive. what would work best. Because many of the community don’t value Gaining an understanding of the people they education, encouraging them to stay in were trying to support was crucial. The team education just to be become better educated were able to collect more data about the is not a motivation. But encouraging them to situation and the challenges that existed stay in education and complete compulsory within the community. The employees of the school to access the Allowance… that was a Community Centre were able to start to use motivation for them. This was without them their knowledge of their local situations and having to become inherently interested in context to help encourage and support them education in its own right. to take steps to support themselves. 4 Ampelokipi-Menemeni’s Solution Story Then, having engaged someone with through the (pre-existing) adults education education, going to the second chance school programme for the retrospective acquisition to gradually became more normal for them, of Primary School Certification. more routine. After that, it was easier to gently encourage the next step: “have you However, the team also realised that to be thought beyond school? What job might you successful in their studies, the children like? What about higher school or vocational needed support from their parents. Very school? Have you thought what you could often the parents could not do this because do?” etc. the parents themselves could not read and write. They had never completed their own Once back in the education system, talking education. The opportunity for parents to about their future (and the place of education engage with the “second chance school” or in that future) became easier.