On 21 June, a third meeting of the Coordination Group of the Council of Europe project ‘Protecting national minorities, including Roma, and minority languages in Ukraine’ was organized. Participants from the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights and National Police discussed results achieved in the first half of 2019 and the plan of action for the second half of 2019 under this project.

In the first half of 2019, the project focused on providing capacity building and presenting best practices and international models for the executive structures dealing with the protection of national minorities and minority languages through peer-to-peer learning and presenting an in-depth study and recommendations prepared by CoE experts.

Moreover, CoE provides practical support to strengthen the education in minority languages and to ensure the visibility of the national minority issues in Ukraine. CoE Educational Toolkit for promoting minority languages among the school pupils was translated to Ukrainian, a brochure about national minorities in Ukraine as well as a compilation of CoE best practices of bilingual education are being prepared. A workshop for the methodologists and master teachers will be organized in Ukraine in the second half of the year to present them with methodologies and best practices of developing curricula and textbooks for minority language education.

The work on facilitating access to identity documents for Roma and to promote the institution of Roma health mediators continued in Ukraine, through the mapping of Roma communities in Transcarpathia and Donetsk regions and through organizing the monitoring visits of the Ombudsperson’s office on the implementation of the National Roma Action Plan. In addition, awareness of the situation of Roma in Ukraine was raised through a number of events, organized in cooperation with the Ukrainian Alliance of Cities and Regions for Roma Inclusion.

The project is implemented in the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2021.