Expertise
We do not claim expertise in everything. These are the five areas where we have projects running right now, staff who have done the work before, and results we can document.
1. Early school leaving and educational inclusion
Romania’s early school leaving rate is 16.6%, and Dolj County and the South-West Oltenia region sit above the national average. We work on this at three levels simultaneously — the pupil, the family, and the school — because interventions aimed only at the child do not hold.
What we actually do: individual diagnostic and personalised support plans; conditional financial support for transport, meals and accommodation; remedial programmes in reading, mathematics and science; accredited teacher training in inclusive methods and educational coaching; parenting schools; long-term mentoring; vocational guidance from lower secondary level.
Current projects: ARIPI (500 pupils in vocational and technical education), ANGLE (470 people, Roma inclusion), COMPAS (352 disadvantaged students).
2. Digital and green skills for adults
We are an authorised training provider, which means our participants leave with certificates recognised across the EU rather than attendance slips.
What we actually do: initial competence assessment with an individual report and personalised training plan for every participant; ANC-accredited specialisation programmes; non-accredited courses in digital literacy, digital collaboration and technical problem-solving; green economy and sustainable entrepreneurship; level 2 qualification courses; participant subsidies.
Current projects: DIGI4Dolj (610 employees in retail and healthcare), EDUDOLJ (310 people with no or low qualifications).
3. Social inclusion of vulnerable groups
Roma communities, long-term unemployed, people without qualifications, families in marginalised communities. We work with integrated measures rather than single interventions, and we design around the barriers that actually stop people: cost, distance, lack of documents, lack of a family doctor, distrust built on previous bad experience.
4. Public health, prevention and screening
We run regional cancer and liver disease screening programmes in partnership with the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, reaching populations that standard health promotion does not touch.
What we actually do: community mobilisation through family doctors and community health workers; information campaigns in vulnerable communities; logistical support along the patient pathway, which is where most screening programmes lose people; coordination with laboratories and endoscopy centres.
Scale: 51,437 people screened in a single completed programme. Current programmes target over 50,000 more.
5. Cross-border cooperation, Romania–Bulgaria
We have worked in the Dolj–Vidin–Montana cross-border area since 2014, across three programming periods. Education, tourism, cultural heritage, workforce mobility, environment.
Past and current projects: INES (innovative educational services, Interreg VI-A), GREEN SCHOOL, SEE AND GO, CREATWIN, LEGENDELE.
Cross-border work has its own logic — different visual identity rules, different reporting, joint indicators, and the practical problem of running activities in two administrative systems at once. We have done it enough times to know where it goes wrong.
Cross-cutting: European citizenship and countering disinformation
Through Europe Direct Craiova, one of the activities we host, we run civic education, European information in plain language, dialogue events with EU officials, a local anti-disinformation function, and a network of local EU ambassadors. This is not a separate silo — it is the communication and outreach capacity that our other projects draw on.
The structures behind this expertise
Five thematic structures are established in our statute as implementation instruments: a vocational training centre, a counselling and support centre for pupils and adults, a social innovation hub, a centre for digital education and future skills, and an observatory for local public policy and community data. Each is backed by capacity currently in use in live projects.