Fruitful Discussions at the Studiorum/OSI Conference on Roma and Public Health in Macedonia

On 22 January 2009 in Holiday Inn Skopje, CRPRC Studiorum and the Open Society Institute Macedonia organized one day conference on the topic Public Health in Macedonia and Roma, supported by the OSI Public Health Program. Ms. Neda Milevska-Kostova from Studiorum and Ms. Slavica Indzevska from OSI had the opening word at the conference announcing two interesting and informative panels. The first panel ‘Challenges in the implementation of laws, policies and plans related to health service provision for the Roma population in Macedonia’ gave the floor to seven speakers from both the governmental and non-governmental sectors to provide cross-sector assessment of the current situation in Macedonia regarding the health issues and priorities with the Roma population. The second panel gave an overview of the positive practices and programs coming from the Region. Ms. Mariana Buceanu (Romania) from the National Agency for Roma, Mr.Marjan Muratovic (Serbia) Center for Education and Health “JAK – ER”, and Mr. Erol Ademov (Macedonia), Officer on resolving community members’ issues, Municipality of Stip all gave their input on good practices regarding health policies. There was a large number of participants present at the conference, which lead to a fruitful public debate and a good starting point for further action.

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