During the last six years, a total of 121 scholarships were awarded to 58 students at four Universities in Serbia
Nenad VladisavljevIn addition to the scholarship and media components, mentoring and public advocacy are also significant RHSP Program components. The mentoring component means the mentors’ individual work with scholarship holders, while the goal of public advocacy is to foster the capacities for improvement of the Roma community position.
“Roma Health Scholarship Program has been conducted in Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia and Serbia. The Program concept is to create Roma medical personnel as the brand which will be recognizable throughout Europe, such as, for example, the Indian people are reputable in the IT sector. Similarly, the Roma should be recognized by their qualified, high-quality and competent medical personnel”, Nenad Vladisavljev from the Association of Roma Students says for ‘’Danas’’. Thus, he is explaining, the prejudices about the Roma as the illiterate are being broken and they are becoming experts in their fields and members of the most educated and, accordingly, the most respectable part of the society.
During the last six years, a total of 121 scholarships were awarded to 58 students at four Universities in Serbia. For the students who are beneficiaries of RHSP scholarships, mentoring and public advocacy are two exceptionally important program components. While the first one is an individual work of a mentor with a scholar (which implies consultations four to six times a month aimed not only at their education but rather at social and psychological support), the goal of the second component is to foster the capacities for improvement of the Roma community position in the health care system.
“At the very beginning, the Roma students are asked to write down their expectations so that we could get prepared in the best possible way. They are asked to make out their personal development plans which help them plan their activities in a quality way and achieve better results in the academic environment”, dr Janko Janković, the Mentoring Component Manager, is explaining its importance: ‘’It is important that investment in building of the mentoring culture results in strengthening of the Roma students’ educational capacities; thereby, they achieve better academic results, their professional development is enhanced, they are integrated in the school environment and society more easily.’’
Mentor dr Željka Stanojević, a specialist in Medical Biochemistry, Teaching Assistant at the School of Medicine at University of Belgrade, is talking about her experiences with RHSP scholarship holders.
“We usually work in groups – a teaching assistant per 33-35 students, while within the scope of this Project I was privileged to work on the individual level. I learnt a lot through individual work about mentoring, about work with students and, eventually, about myself. A mentor can give much more as well as receive much more. Every success they make is partially mine, too”, says dr Stanojević, explaining her role. ‘’We would always conceive the exam strategy, inclusion in the academic community, scientific and research work. We would meet once a week. We would communicate by mail or viber. We talked about annual, biennial, triennial plans and eventual assistance in realization of such plans. Working with them is a pleasure, because they are extremely hard-working and very smart.”
Importance of the mentoring component is described in the best way by the students - scholarship holders themselves in the, so-called, evaluation questionnaires they have to complete at the end of each year.
As regards the professional aspect, they most often mention how mentoring helps them improve their knowledge and skills in the profession, surmount the difficult subjects more easily, learn more efficiently and also develop the professional academic networks.
''Still, it is a privilege to have a mentor – one to one. On the personal level, we help them in getting more self-confidence and support, in identity and motivation fostering, in improving the communication skills, in feeling that they belong to a group which is very important. Also, in making the friendships, as they say, for the whole life with their mentors and with other students“, says dr Janković, with a remark that, actually, the most important is their feeling that they are equally accepted in the academic environment which contributes to prejudice-breaking about the illiterate Roma.
In addition to all aforementioned, mentoring also implies assistance to the students in their scientific and research work, which is not obligatory to get the scholarship but which widely enhances the professional development of the future medical workers. Thus, in addition to regular and very successful faculty attendance, some students also publish papers in the national and international scientific magazines in the field of health and present their scientific research works at international professional congresses.
''If they come up with a project, the students will also receive financial resources for it and the Roma Education Fund has approved and financed some of them. An excellent result is that a Roma student in the third year of the project was awarded with the European Union Scholarship for University Education and that he took his one-year-long practice in Ljubljana. A girl student received BASILEUS scholarship for the student exchange program, also in Ljubljana. This year, we have a student who will go to Salzburg and also another student who has been at advanced training in Norway since November last year“, dr Janković says.
Nevertheless, only a small number of Roma students make up their mind to engage in the scientific and research work. Dr Željka Stanojević shares with us her impression that the students of the Roma nationality are afraid, more than the others, of such a huge step.
“Whether they think it does not belong to them, whether they take a kind of distance from it, however, in my opinion it is unnecessary, as the science has to be attainable to all. It is not attainable only to those who do not respond”, says dr Stanojević. The students, still, justify their uninvolvement by the (indisputable) fact that medical sciences are not only difficult to study, but that faculty obligations take enormous time.
“Medicine is indeed a difficult faculty, but I think all you need is - to keep on going for another ten meters. I think they are not motivated enough and that they have an antagonism towards it”, dr Stanojević points out.
Apart to mentoring, an important program component is the, so-called, public advocacy, which has been conducted by the Association of Roma Students this year.
“In the previous years we had a series of trainings when the scholars would define a local program in the field of health. This year, the focus is more on their better acquaintance with the Roma community and the problems in the field of Roma health. We noticed that the scholarship holders are insufficiently familiar with the problems of the poorest Roma and insufficiently familiar with the Roma community who lives under the poorest conditions”, says Nenad Vladisavljev, coordinator of the public advocacy component and explains that this year the scholarship holders together with pedagogical assistants and coordinators for the Roma issues are going out in the field, to the poorest Roma communities and there they will record down their observations which will be used for essays, with the view to improvement of general health of this minority community.
“Apart to our wish to have future competent health professionals, we also want to have conscious and responsible citizens. It means the young people who will, in a way, repay to the Roma community by multiplying the effects of their personal achievements, by being connected with their community once they achieve any kind of integration into the society owing to their education. And, it is valuable for the very society which gains conscious citizens, who will, regardless of their national identity, act responsibly towards the public wealth, as we call it. Who will, actually, serve this community, and who won’t be just young, ambitious people oriented only towards their own careers”, Vladisavljev concludes.