ABRE Projecte

Raising social awareness of the challenges and barriers to accessing university, highlighting positive role models from the Roma community who have completed post-compulsory education, and facilitating spaces for dialogue that combine institutional vision, professional experience and direct testimony from students have been the objectives of the ABRE project.

Led by PhD student Elena Prado and coordinated by Ana Tomás, senior lecturer in the Department of Drawing at the Faculty of Fine Arts, ABRE is part of the Glocal 2025 programme of the Development Cooperation Centre at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). ABRE is an acronym for Basic Actions for Educational Reorientation, and its motto is: Open your mind, open your possibilities, open your world. Art functions serve as an agent of social integration and a driver of personal development, aimed at Roma students in early childhood and primary education (CEIPs).

Thanks to the project, audiovisual material has been produced that tells the story of Roma culture and its people. (Video)

Graphics, artistic creation, and play as tools for education and personal development. A methodological strategy that uses culture, memory and childhood as a reference point to increase motivation and aid the personal development of students at risk of social exclusion. (Video)

In addition, a technological platform has been created in the METAVERSE, expanding student participation in virtual exhibitions and improving their reach and accessibility through their contemporary impact. (Video)

Closing ceremony

These results were presented at the closing day of the ABRE project, which was held in the Rafael Couchoud Auditorium of the School of Civil Engineering. The day focused on the reality of post-compulsory education pathways in the Roma community, and participants shared experiences and results. Above all, it created a space for active reflection on inclusion and the future of education.

The UPV Development Cooperation Centre, the Fundación Secretariado Gitano, American Space Valencia, the Drawing Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts, the Research Centre for Art and Environment (CIAE), UPV Social Action and Volunteering, as well as associations, schools, and other social and educational agents, collaborated in the conference. Also in attendance were primary school principals, teachers, university volunteers and Roma leaders, with primary school students involved in the project's talks and workshops playing a leading role.

Socio-educational intervention methodology

The ABRE Project has developed a socio-educational and artistic intervention methodology aimed at tackling school dropout among groups at risk of social exclusion, especially the Roma community in Spain. The project reaffirms that the combination of artistic mediation and the visibility of academic role models who have achieved their degrees and professions can become a catalyst for motivation, empowerment, and the construction of a more just society, thereby avoiding segregation.

Current data indicate a persistent educational gap: according to the Fundación Secretariado Gitano, only 1.6% of Roma students attend university, compared to 31.5% of the general population. This reality confirms the need to promote initiatives such as ABRE.

The intersection between role model pedagogy and artistic commitment is proving to be an effective pathway for comprehensive development and social transformation in the field of education. This generates a transfer of results to other areas and replicable outcomes in different educational and cultural communities, as well as vulnerable communities and contexts at risk of exclusion.