Bergen Municipality - a cooperative project for housing Roma in Romania

He gave guests from Romania the yellow jackets of the southwest. Here with part of the host from the City Council’s Department of Culture, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

Photo: Ingerd Lynn Nehm

Last week, 17 committed Romanians from Cluj-Napoca, Romania visited Bergen to learn about what we do and what experiences we have working for the underprivileged in society.

All 17 people who visit us daily work on the Pata Rat 2.0 project where Bergen Municipality is one of the partners.

The project works to improve the conditions of marginalized groups of the Roma population who lack basic rights and live in slum-like conditions.

Living next to a landfill

Collaboration on the project began several years ago with Pata Rat 1.0. In this project, 35 houses were provided for 35 families of Pata Rat. Bata Rat is an area of the landfill outside Cluj.

On the Pata Rat 2.0 project, work is now underway to purchase homes and settle 30 Pata Rat families elsewhere in the city. Still, the resettlement of 30 families does not solve the problems in the region. Therefore work must be done at several levels to ensure health services, to introduce parents to regular working conditions, to ensure that children and young people go to school and to prevent school dropout, to provide after-school activities, etc. Many of those who live in the areas do not have papers showing who they are and lack basic skills such as reading and writing.

More information about the project can be found on the project’s website: https://desegregare.ro/en/ .

Sharing knowledge about working with marginalized groups

The cooperation project was adopted as a measure in the Bergen municipality’s plan to combat human trafficking.

Action 12: Participation in a social protection project with the municipality of Cluj, Romania, funded by EEA funds. Visiting is an important part of the experience and knowledge sharing that we do, and Romanians have come to Bergen to learn more about how we work against marginalized groups. Over the course of three full days, Romanians heard about the many different services Bergen municipality offers.

What did they see in Bergen?

The group met on Wednesday and heard about settlement work at the submission center. In addition, they visited the Ny-Krohnborg Center for Education, Sports and Culture, where they heard how we work with inclusion in a multicultural neighborhood. They were given a tour of the new library, school building, activity center and even met a Romanian student.

On Thursday morning, the group, which consisted of social workers, psychologists and expert counselors, split. Here they shared experiences with colleagues in the municipality of Bergen about each other’s daily work, approach and methodology in follow-up work. They also received information about the advantages of different services that are collected at the same site.

The psychologists met with the psychologists in our services at Child and Family Aid and the Immigration Health Center, and also received an introduction to NAV Bergenhus services. The rest of the group took the bus to Åsane and visited NAV Bergen nord and Families hus. I spent the afternoon at the Housing Authority in Puntabo. A tour of the building was arranged where they were able to receive representatives from the other services located there.

On Friday it’s time to check out some of the areas and homes owned by the municipality. The trip went to Slåtthauglia, Birkelundsbakken, Slettebakken, Dikterkvartalet and Løvstakken. In addition, they were able to see the buildings in which we have temporary housing in Paradise and information about plans to build residential and residential centers on the plot of land located behind the Fana Fire Station. The day and stay ended with lunch from Mat og prat, cake and coffee on the 14th floor of Bergen Town Hall.