Roma Education Fund and Serbian Employers Association Launch Partnership to Strengthen Roma Workforce Participation
Belgrade, Serbia – As Europe faces labour shortages, demographic decline, and growing pressure to strengthen competitiveness, the Roma Education Fund (REF) is increasingly focused on one strategic priority: connecting one of Europe’s youngest populations to the continent’s future workforce. Through its Skills and Employment pillar, REF is developing employer-driven models that link education, skills, and real labour market opportunities. In this context, during the second week of May, REF signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Serbian Association of Employers, one of Serbia’s leading representative business organizations, during a coordination meeting with Andreja Brkić, President of the Executive Board, in Belgrade.
The partnership with the Serbian Association of Employers is designed to strengthen direct cooperation between employers, educational actors, and Roma communities in order to build practical pathways into employment. The focus will include vocational training, workforce preparation, employment mediation, and long-term job retention support aligned with real labour market demand.
Having a continuous insight of labour needs that have companies and enterprises of all sizes and from various sectors, REF improves it’s capacity to prepare Roma job seekers for present and future jobs based on realistic needs. Improved access to numerous business entities at once creates opportunities for joint projects in area of reskilling, on-the- job trainings, on job mentorship programs and other activities that will improve employment and employability of the Roma community – Marina Savkovic, team leader Skills and Employment, REF Network.
The cooperation reflects REF’s broader strategic transformation under its new integrated framework: Learn. Work. Lead. Under this model, education is treated not simply as access to schooling, but as the development of measurable competencies. Employment becomes the point where those competencies are translated into economic stability and participation. Leadership then ensures that individual success contributes to broader institutional and community transformation.
For REF, the long-term objective goes beyond connecting individuals to employment opportunities. It is also about showing that strong educational and employment models can create meaningful results and contribute to stronger, more inclusive systems over time. In this sense, the agreement signed in Belgrade is not only about employment cooperation. It also reflects a broader effort to strengthen the place of Roma inclusion within Europe’s evolving economic agenda.
