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.
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.
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| Charles de Steuben, Esmeralda, 1839, Nantes, musée des Beaux-Arts © RMN-Grand Palais / Gérard Blot |
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
- 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.
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 5th 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.
