A free online course, entitled Embracing Diversity in Kindergarten Classrooms, delivered in Serbian language, is launched in June. The course aims to help practitioners working in kindergarten settings to understand their role in the processes of discrimination and oppression. This course will be particularly useful to practitioners who work in diverse settings, with a focus on inclusion of Roma children. It will provide a professional development opportunity for early childhood educators in deepening their skills so that their work with children provides a foundation that will better prepare them to live and work in the 21^st century.

The course is the result of a partnership project. ISSA and UNESCO are joining forces to further strengthen the capacities of practitioners working in kindergarten settings to address diversity, with a focus on Roma children. With funding from the Open Society Foundations and UNESCO, ISSA and CIP/Center for Interactive Pedagogy/Serbia have worked together to develop this course, building on the experience of the Education for Social Justice Program, carried out in the ISSA network. The partnership also builds on ISSA’s previous experience working with online platforms for shared learning among practitioners and in projects aiming at Roma inclusion in early years services.

The course will begin in June 2013 and will go through December 2013. ISSA plans to organize future online trainings for REYN members, in different languages.