Roma and non Roma social cohesion across Europe

09/09/2013

20/08/2013

Regards de Femmes Tsiganes, Summer university in Romani studies (3rd mobility)

The full report is on its way, but we can already enjoy some of the pictures taken by Marc Chatelain.

©Marc Chatelain

See you all soon in Hungary for the meeting organized by Kurt Lewin Foundation.

24/07/2013

Report of the meeting in Bulgaria

Photo: Marc Chatelain

The 2^nd meeting of Roma-non-Roma social cohesion across Europe took place in Sofia, on March 22^nd 2013! The meeting was a good opportunity for the partnership to meet again with the partner’s organizations from France, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Bulgaria to share experience and discuss the upcoming actions within the project.

The meeting started by introduction of each participants and their work in each organization relevant to Roma-Non-Roma social cohesion, within the topics of Active Citizenship, Fight against Racism and Addressing Target Groups with special needs. (All presentations, meeting materials and photos can be found as attachments and on the website).

Read the full Report here: Meeting in Bulgaria

02/04/2013

Sofia, Bulgaria

On March 22nd, we had a great meeting in Sofia discussing how to improve social cohesion between Roma and non Roma people !

©Marc Chatelain

Thank you very much to our hosts !

See you all in Lyon in July :)

12/12/2012

Welcome ! (Lauching meeting)

Last October 29th 2012, we hold our launching meeting in Paris! It was a great opportunity to meet with the Partner organizations from Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Italy and Romania.

We started by introducing ourselves and the work each organization does to promote equality and to fight discrimination against Romas in our societies. We raised some issues we will be addressing during the 2 years partnership such as : governments reacting to emergency situations and lacking long term strategies but also focusing on health and social issues. This way of tackling discriminations faced by Romas gives a fragmented image of the Roma population instead of showing the diversity of the population, the complexity of the challenges people are facing etc. and tends to restrain Romas to these particularities.

We visited the exhibition "Bohèmes" at le Grand Palais in Paris. The Grand Palais is one of the most visited museum in Paris. Sarah Carmona, historian and activist in the organization « Regards de femmes tsiganes » gave us a tour and explained how the masterpieces shown there were reflecting the vision the mainstream society has on Roma and lacking the Roma point of view.

So some of the ideas we shared were :
- To present a Roma counter point of view in the exhibition
- To organize Romani tours of the museum (and even in other museums)
- To establish a museum with Roma art of the same period

Nonetheless, we felt the existence of such an exhibition is a step forward. You can find more about it here : http://www.grandpalais.fr/grandformat/exposition/bohemes/

Then, we explored the different specificities of our countries regarding the situation of Romas.

During this discussion, French partners shared the specificity of the French situation: minorities are not recognized as such since the Republic doesn’t distinguish citizens based on race, religion or political view. The paradoxes are that:

- the creation of an administrative category called « gens du voyages » which includes some Romas, some travellers, and other nomadic people who are not Roma led to discrimination against a specific population with the « carnets de circulation » (circulation paper) that need to be stamped every 3 months by the police, difficulties to put children in schools, to access bank services and assurance etc. (This measure was overruled by the French Constitutional Council on October 5^th 2012).

- the foreign Roma in the public discourses are stigmatized and treated like a particular minority

We finished the day updating our workplan and discussing next meetings, signing our presence sheets. Concerning the aspects that can be evaluated qualitatively, we agreed on postponing this item to the next meeting.

We also had a wonderful diner altogether sharing methodologies and strategies to tackle discrimination in our countries.