Institute is research partner in Speak UP! Girls for Change
In October 2026, the Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (IESA SAS) began work on the project Speak UP! Girls for Change. The project is supported by the EEA Civil Society Fund Slovakia programme, which is funded by the EEA Financial Mechanism 2021–2028. The programme is managed by the Ekopolis Foundation in partnership with the Open Society Foundation Bratislava and the Carpathian Foundation. The project is led by the civic association Divé maky, with the Institute acting as its research partner. The project runs from 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2028.
The project aims to strengthen the leadership, civic and research competences of ten young Roma women and girls. Through participatory research in their own communities, the participants will map barriers in education, services and participation and, together with experts, translate them into recommendations for public policy and community practice. One of the key outputs will be a White Paper through the Eyes of Roma Girls.
Two researchers are working on the project on behalf of the Institute: Assoc. Prof. Jana Ambrózová, PhD, and Tatiana Zachar Podolinská, PhD. The Institute is responsible for the scholarly and methodological quality of the project’s research component. It will prepare the research design and ethical standards, a methodological and ethical manual, and training in participatory research for the participants; it will provide expert supervision during the collection of at least 100 interviews and take part in the analysis and interpretation of the data. The Institute will also act as the scholarly guarantor of the White Paper and will measure the development of the participants’ competences at the beginning and at the end of the project, combining the participants’ self-assessment, assessment by their mentors, and participant observation.
