#RomaCommunityChannel

The Roma is the most excluded ethnic minority in Europe, facing prejudice, intolerance, discrimination and social exclusion since centuries.  As a consequence, Roma suffers a huge social and educational gap, which hampers their remote access to services. Besides, the COVID19 pandemic has only  increased their social inequalities

#RomaCommunityChannel will be an accessible, user-friendly App created with and for Roma thanks to the Communicative Methodology (CM), a way of engaging from scientific evidence, both end users and key stakeholders in every step of the process for problem-solving. A network of “checkpoints” (Roma leaders) will ensure that Roma are able to use the App.

With this solution, Roma families would have more opportunities for having the necessary technology and skills that will enable them to access services by digital authentication mechanisms. This goes beyond mitigating the effects of the pandemic, with a great opportunity for overcoming historical inequalities in digital access.

Roma face social exclusion in all  areas for human development, such as health, employment, education. The most important international and European organizations, as the World Bank, the European Commission, the European Union or the EU-Fundamental Rights Agency, among others, have long been pointing to the huge gap between Roma and the rest of society. As an example of their inequalities, Roma has higher rates of illiteracy, drop-out and school failure, and only the 15% of them complete upper secondary education. Besides, Roma households have higher rates of unemployment and no equal access to public utilities, basic housing amenities, and 80% of Roma are at risk of poverty. This gap has exponentially increased due to the COVID19 pandemic. Importantly, many Roma people have never registered, have lost their documentation or do not have it. 

The Roma suffer, globally, an alarming digital gap, because they do not have the necessary skills and facilities to have remote access to many services and benefits (for instance, no access to digital authentication mechanisms).

The #RomaCommunityChannel App, through our Communicative Methodology and the “checkpoint” network, will ensure that Roma have remote access to user-friendly technology, as well as the needed skills and facilities to use it.

The solution serves to the Roma community, which has historically been not only marginalised but also excluded from the decision-making in the programmes targeted to reduce their inequalities. The idea of the #RomaCommunityChannel  was developed under #EUvsVIRUS Hackathon (24-26 April 2020) by a Roma and non-Roma team, from 3 countries and from very diverse disciplines (sociology, biology, arts, tech, education, politics...) and profiles (researchers, activists, others). Communicative Methodology has led to relevant social impact in previous research projects under the EC framework programme (eg. EU-FP5 Workalo).   

The methodology and the application is built on the premise that those end users as well as key stakeholders, would also be  involved in every step of the process. The Roma will find in the App a direct channel to their community. The confidence and the feeling of community will help the incorporation of highly marginalised Roma communities to the digital identification procedures and encourage them transitioning from offline to online settings to cope with employment, education, health, housing and other needs.  CM  and our App foster social cohesion and can be uptaken by government bodies and organisations in social, cultural, and health domains.  

The #RomaCommunityChannel App will ensure that digital authentication mechanisms, as well as other relevant information and on-line resources, are accessible to most excluded Roma communities. The App will be designed taking into account Roma voices and their needs, in order to be  accessible and user-friendly for them. Besides, a “contact point” person in each area will also ensure the access of these Roma groups to all digital facilities, providing them the abilities, skills and resources that they need. As a result, the App will facilitate remote access to services and benefits of marginalized Roma families.

Given the relevance of solidarity networks and social ties as the traditional community response to basic social problems among Roma community, the #RomaCommunityChannel will enable the transition from offline to online, engaging relationally in such channels to cope with employment, education, health, housing and other needs. 

Many of the solutions aimed to address Roma needs lack the involvement of the Roma and are based on biased views of Roma culture. Dealing with Roma as passive beneficiaries leads to a deficit perspective that does not acknowledge the skills, capacities and organisation of grassroots Roma to challenge difficult realities. The Communicative Methodology places the voice of the most vulnerable groups at the core of the whole research process, from the research design to the interpretation of its results. This process facilitates alternatives for transformation of the situations being analysed, which arise directly from these traditionally excluded groups. It breaks with the epistemological gap and the interpretation hierarchies that dominated social research in the past. The use of CM in the conceptualisation, development, piloting and scaling up of the #RomaCommunityChannel ensures the co-creation process that makes it unique. 

Besides the technical App, a network of "check points" formed by volunteers organised on the ground will help the new users to use the App.

The #RomaChannelCommunity will be an App based on existing technologies that will work as other Apps do for social sharing of information and resources.  

The App will be free of charge and should include the following features: 

• to have video conference option (e.g.: direct link to Zoom or other video-conference platforms).

• voice recognition (some Roma are illiterate or have poor technology skills). 

• to be intuitive and with an easy interface (some Roma are illiterate or have significant technology skill gaps).

• accessible even in regions with low bandwidth internet connection.

• to be user-friendly and considerate of Roma with disabilities.

Importantly, the whole process will be based on a democratic and egalitarian leadership to ensure that Roma are participating in the management, development, and assessment of the #RomaCommunityChannel, and contents are truthful, and scientifically and ethically rigorous.

During the pandemic, many Roma living in poor socio-economic conditions used different on-line platforms to be connected with their family and community members, respecting social distance restrictions. The idea of the #RomaCommunityChannel is put together in only one App, all the on-line platforms that they need to be in touch with their community, but, at the same time: 1) use digital authentication mechanisms to give them more services and benefits, as health care, social services, etc.; and 2) provide them new resources and possibilities, for instance access to educational programs or to evidence-based information.

The activities to be undertaken are as follow: 

• Creation of an App, free of charge, to develop the virtual community and to share truthful, and scientifically and ethically rigorous information, with Roma, contesting misinformation.

• Promotion of a network of "check points", which will be volunteers organised on the ground.

• Preparation of a Governance and management plan for a democratic leadership. 

• Horizontal dissemination of the App and the check points network among Roma communities, organisations and government bodies.  

The outputs of these activities are as follow: 

• Enhancing the engagement of Roma people in online settings, promoting their values as solidarity, connecting more Roma from their neighbourhoods, and also from larger areas.

• Roma families connecting through the network of "check points" in their communities and improvement of skills and motivation for online connection. 

• Uptake by government bodies, educational environments and also varied social, cultural, and health domains.

The short-term outcomes are as follow: 

• Contributing to access digital authentication mechanisms for Roma groups

• Contributing to overcome the digital gap

• Fostering social cohesion 

The long-term outcomes are as follow:

• Overcoming the digital gap of Roma people.

• Improve socio-economic conditions of the most vulnerable Roma groups 

• Improve educational backgrounds of the most vulnerable Roma groups 

• Increase the number of EU citizens using digital authentication mechanisms, and having remote access to more services and benefits. 

• Involve local, regional and national governments and public administrations in the promotion of a real social inclusion of Roma, especially the most vulnerable groups. 

The #RomaCommunityChannel will be a user-friendly App that Roma communities will want to use because of its services and options. In fact, they are already using separately some on-line platforms that the App will include.

To access to the App, they will have two log in options: 1) Username and password; 2) digital certificate or other digital authentication mechanism. The “check-points” networks will help Roma to obtain their digital authentication in the official body of their country, region or locality. 

Once Roma community members have their digital authentication, they could access to the #RomaCommunityChannel, but also access to other services and benefits in which digital authentication is needed, especially to many health and social services, as well as other resources and opportunities (for instance as consumers, workers, micro-enterprises, taxpayers and beneficiaries, civically engaged individuals and asset owners). 

#RomaCommunityChannel will be intuitive, easy to use, simple and Roma will can rely on the services and opportunities. It will be easy to start with the app and understand how to use it. A working proper software will be developed, taking into account an easy log in option linked to an official digital authentication system (it could be different for each country).

Checkpoints network will help Roma members to have a good user experience, but also to well understand the easy and friendly interface. 

Once Roma log in in the App with their digital authentication, they can access to many services and benefits. So, the only thing they need to do is log in into the App.

Besides, #RomaCommunityChannel will be using the Communicative Methodology, which means that Roma will be involved in all the problem solving processes. It means that they will be involved in all the decisions, so the App will be especially user-friendly and intuitive for them, because their feedback and suggestions. 

The design of this App includes the interoperability with official information systems in relation to health, education and social benefits for facilitating the information needed for the Roma. In order to do so, the research team will establish contact with corresponding institutions for signing collaboration agreements to allow data sharing respecting the privacy and personal data protection and corresponding legal frameworks. In any case, the decisions in this topic will be carried out with Roma communities (end-users). Due to the expertise on research framework programs and collaboration with national and autonomous governments in previous works this collaboration will be fruitful  and feed into the project.

The low connectivity environments will be considered as it is a major concern of the grassroots organisations and Roma people. We will take into account the actions of associations and other organisations that work to provide connectivity in such settlements. The bottom up approach will underline the proposal.Besides, the checkpoints network will be located in a venue in the community with connectivity, so any Roma community members will have, always, a remote access point in their neighbourhood. 

It will also consider as a key aspect the equal accompaniment that ensures the success to manage the identification and ICT learning. In this sense, To increase the educational skills and abilities of users with low literacy and numeracy levels, we use the Successful Educational Actions (SEAs) approach, developed by “INCLUD-ED - Strategies for Inclusion and Social Cohesion in Europe from Education” (2006-2011) under the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission. Specifically, checkpoints will carry out the SEA called “Family education”. This action is based on the premise of the importance of lifelong learning for the entire educational community. Family education must respond to the needs of families from a perspective of high expectations, and based primarily on improving the instrumental skills of families through high quality educational programmes. For this case, Family Education programmes will be focused on IT skills and contents to use properly the App.

The #RomaCommunityChannel is currently an idea, so we do not have numbers of people using the App yet. 

In one year, we expect to serve between 5.000-10.000 people, and in five years, between 50.000-100.000. The major part of them will be Roma living in depraved neighbourhoods, and/or traditionally excluded and marginalised Roma families. 

We expect to initiate and expand the use of evidence-based solutions in the context of COVID-19 and Roma, which is an under-researched topic that requires further efforts to minimise the negative impact in vulnerable populations. The goal is in line with international efforts to minimise the risk of misinformation in the pandemic context, supporting in effective ways the science communication channels. The transformational impact of evidence-based solutions underlines this proposal, that will be achieved taking advantage of scientific channels and dialogues with grassroots organisations. Our position leading research at the EU level about Roma, participation of vulnerable groups in science and how to achieve a real engagement into research, will make a difference to achieve our goals. The scaling-up and replicability is one of our organisational strengths, having collaborations with more than 400 schools acting as Learning Communities around the world. These schools are implementing the successful educational actions that we have scientifically developed. The impact for the learning outcomes and living together in challenging contexts has been published in the most important scientific journals at the international level. From these experiences, we will build the goals for the years to come.

The main barriers of our solution are:

• Low or no connectivity in the neighbourhoods

• Low skills and abilities of the end-users to use the App

• No devices to use the App in the end-users households, even no electricity or connectivity 

• App in different languages 

• Interoperability  with existing technologies and open standards.

• Ensure Roma participation in all the decision-making processes

• Financial support 

• Public administration support

• Ensure legal frameworks, as  law for the protection of data, among others

Our plan to overcome each identified barrier are: 

• Low or no connectivity in the neighbourhoods; No devices to use the App in the end-users households, even no electricity or connectivity;  

Ensure at least 1 venue in the neighbourhood with devices and connectivity, where the “contactpoint” person will work and end-users could go to use the App and participate in family education programs. 

• Low skills and abilities of the end-users to use the App

Family education programs, based on the SEA approach, will be developed to ensure that end-users have the necessary skills and abilities to use the App. 

• App in different languages 

We will work with professionals and researchers from all over Europe, native speakers in each language.  

• Interoperability  with existing technologies and open standards.

We will work in partnership with enterprises and professionals on the field to solve this issue. 

• Ensure Roma participation in all the decision-making processes 

We have more than 25 years of experience involving Roma people in our projects and researches, even in the most excluded areas. 

• Financial support; Public administration support

We have more than 25 years of experience working together with local, regional, national and European public bodies, and receiving financial support in the most competitive public calls.  

• Ensure legal frameworks, as  law for the protection of data, among others 

We will work in partnership with enterprises and professionals in the field to solve this issue.

The Community of Research on Excellence for All (CREA) would be leading on the project. CREA has researchers from University of Barcelona and other universities and has a history of delivering successful major EU-Funded projects, works horizontally with the most marginalised communities across the globe. CREA is well-placed to lead on the project and in supporting a team of developers. CREA has more than 25 years of experience involving end-users in its projects under Communicative Methodology approach and promoting social impact for the most vulnerable groups. 

More info about CREA: https://crea.ub.edu/

The initial idea of the #RomaCommunityChannel was developed by a team of 7 people. Ramon Flecha (former director of CREA and EC expert on evaluating social impact) had the original idea of the project. 

The Roma Studies Group (CEG) within CREA  is formed by more than 10 Roma and non-Roma researchers, and collaborates with Roma organisations and national and regional governments. 

More info about Roma Studies Group: https://crea.ub.edu/index/human-excellence/antiracism/ceg/

More info about CREA’s impact: https://crea.ub.edu/index/scientific-excellence/

The team has research expertise recognised at the international level, which contributes to sustain the proposed solution. The previous collaborative work ensures the effectiveness of the team, lead by Prof. Soler (PhD Harvard University) acting as director of CREA. 

We have a strong background on contributing to alleviate social disparities through scientific contributions using communicative methodology. This has had an outstanding impact in different fields, especially concerning the situation of the Roma people in Europ.  For instance, the main conclusion of the WORKALÓ FP5 project, directed by Flecha and conducted following the CM, was approved by unanimous vote by the European parliament, which in turn led to different policies at European and member states’ level. In Spain, the Integrated Policy for the Roma in Catalonia is being developed building on the results of the WORKALO project and, among other achievements, is contributing to increase the presence of Roma students in universities: going from 8 people in 5 years, to 60 in 3 years. A whole picture of social impact of the CREA team can be found in the book entitled “Achieving Social Impact” (Soler, 2017): https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319602691

We have also expertise in innovative solutions based on technologies. We created SIOR, the first worldwide Social Impact Open Repository. We are currently developing a tool for the monitoring of hate speech in social media (especifically twitter) with the Spanish Ministry of Home Affairs. 

CREA has been collaborating for more than 25 years with Roma grassroots organisations, involving in research the voices of Roma people. One of the associations is the Drom Kotar Mestipen, devoted to the improvement of Roma women. The educational dimension of the associations has contributed in inspiring and useful ways to the research activities we develop, not only enriching the investigations but also to expand the impact achieved to improve Roma people. We work with them on the basis of egalitarian dialogue, which is one of the principles of communicative methodology in research. 

We also work with the Catalan and the Spanish Government in different spaces related to the improvement of social and educational conditions of Roma People in Spain. Also in Europe, many CREA researchers participate in committees and other spaces focused on Roma inclusion.

As a research community, we provide scientific evidence that can inform policies and programmes for improving the social conditions of marginalised populations and minorities. The co-creation of knowledge through Communicative Methodology leads to better innovative solutions. The value provided to the Roma community is based on the opportunity to share solutions about common concerns, on the basis of the distinctive culture of the beneficiaries. We disseminate the results of research through scientific publications in top ranked journals but also to non academic audiences, specially policy-makers and civil organizations. Identified solutions can be then uptaken by diverse agents and transferred to different contexts. 

Thus, the impact of the intervention model goes beyond the economic dimension for the beneficiaries, as the improvement is linked to well-being. The Roma are highly interested in being included in evidence-based solutions that can break their devasting inequalities.

The low income end-user makes necessary to search for creative distribution systems, in a potential combination with a cooperativist model. From research CREA has scientifically developed what internationally is known as Successful Cooperativist Actions, analysed in the framework of cooperatives acting in the international sphere. These actions may be potentially articulated around the proposal to be sustainable in long term.

We do not have raised funds at the moment.

The type of funding for the solution is linked to research funding from regional, national, European and/or international calls for proposals. We will apply to research calls with budgets between 10.000 US dollars to 2.5 US million dollars. In the calls with more budget, the proposed solution will be a part of the whole project. 

On the basis of our previous experience in research funding, the estimated expenses for 2020 is between 10.000-50.000 US dollars.

We are applying to the Mission Billion Challenge Global Prize because Roma communities in Europe and around the world deserve innovative, evidence-based and co-created solutions for overcoming their historical inequalities. In times of covid pandemic, it is more necessary than ever that the Roma have a real opportunity to access all the information and the various social benefits they need. A high number of Roma lack proper documentation, and this situation is extremely worrying in the case of digital identification. Winning the Global Prize would allow the opportunity of developing the idea of the #RomaCommunityChannel using our expertise in Communicative Methodology and a great networking capacity with Roma organizations. Besides, it would facilitate building relevant partnerships with public organisms to solve technical barriers (e.g. interoperability).

The core of our activities is research and therefore, the business dimension and the funding and revenue model of the proposal may require a particular effort in which partnership could be supportive. This is coherent with the initiatives of research-business collaborations to achieve integral solutions for vulnerable populations such as Roma. 

The interoperability of the App with other existing technologies and information systems requires partnership with relevant institutions /governments /agencies in the countries in which the solution is expected to be developed. 

CREA research has led the first European research about the Roma in Europe (WORKALO, FP5 European Framework Program), where researchers and members of the Roma community collaborated as a joint team. On the basis of this approach which has always underlined CREA Roma research, the Roma organisations will inspire the proposal in  continuous two-way dialogue. The way we will partner with the organisations will be based on the same principles that have inspired the previous successful collaborations.