A price cannot be placed on the commitment, progress and expertise demonstrated over the last twenty years on behalf of the education of the travelling communities.
The Resolutions of the Council of the EU in 1989 made a significant commitment to Traveller education, however, without the appropriate updating of commitment/policies and funding, these Resolutions ring hollow.
The support and work with these communities over the last twenty years has addressed the reluctance of the Travelling Communities themselves to embrace and value education.
With Traveller education we are in Europe at a critical and crucial stage. This opportunity must not be lost but built upon and invested in if social inclusion is to progress beyond words in Europe.
Therefore -after a European wide consultation- a large group of representative organisations call on the national and European Policy makers to respect and to implement their recommendations formulated in their “Declaration of Düsseldorf”:
1. The European Institutions are required to bring the subject “Education of the Occupational Travellers and other Travellers” on to the Political Agenda. If - in these times of national and EU attention to social inclusion - particular attention to the needs of these communities is lost it will be very difficult or even impossible to bring families and organisations again to the state of co-operation achieved to date, such would be the consequences of loss of trust.
2. The Mission of the EU and the Members States must be updated. The results of the implementation of the Resolutions of the Council (1989) must been taken into account as well as the actual needs and priorities for the future.
Special attention should be given to issues such as:
- pre-school education (early learners)
- initial and in-service teacher training
- proper models of open and distance learning
- making use of the added value of new technologies
- adult education / lifelong learning
3.The main Educational Programmes of the EU (Socrates) must enable the further development of European Networking and Collaboration with regard to the education of the Travelling Communities. Therefore these Programmes must give clear objectives aimed at the implementation of the updated Mission.
4. With regard to the co-ordination of European Networking and Collaboration the EU institutions, together with the Member States, have to develop a core-funding model for the co-ordination.
5. With regard to the consolidation and to the implementation of the results and outcomes of the European Networking and Collaboration the Member States must be stimulated to create mechanisms for empowerment via political and financial support of networking at the national/regional level.
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