Category Archives: Slovakia

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Atlas of Roma Communities

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Atlas of Roma Communities

Data collection as part of the sociographic mapping of Roma communities will continue until the end of June. This was announced at a press conference on Tuesday by the Plenipotentiary of the Slovak Government for Roma Communities Alexander Daško and the staff of his office. The reason is the effort to integrate data from the maximum number of municipalities with a relevant presence of Roma communities into the census.

What is remarkable, is that this atlas doesn’t really coincide with the official census …

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia and Unemployed

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Slovakia and Unemployed

The Slovak parliament has passed a law that can take away benefits for refusing a work opportunity. Opposition warns of discrimination against Roma. Their concern is that Roma will be offered menial works (such as in the Hungarian Közmunka), and will be no longer entitled to anything afterwards.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Mandatory Work?

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Slovakia: Mandatory Work?

The Minister of Tourism has declared that Roma communities are “a clear cost to society” and therefore wants to employ them in agriculture and support for tourism.

Already his statement is derogatory. But he wants to employ Roma in helping develop tourism in the Slovak countryside. It sounds very much like the mandatory work that was introduced in Hungary, as a way to get cheap labour.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: EU Parliament’s Audit

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Slovakia: EU Parliament’s Audit

Instead of solving the sewage or water supply problems in Roma settlements where people live in clay houses, a completely meaningless Roma media house will be built for 60 million. This cannot be overlooked, says Tomáš Zdechovský, who heads the European Parliament’s audit in Slovakia, in an interview with Aktuality.sk.

What a waste …

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

The Church and Roma

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The Church and Roma

The German Catholic Foundation Renovabis and the Bishops’ Conference of Slovakia (KBS) announced that in 2025 they will also financially support the development of Roma pastoral centers and Catholic Roma missions through the Capacity Building for Roma Pastoral Work and Its Sustainability program and its Small Projects Fund.

The aim of this joint initiative, which began in 2015, is to strengthen the spiritual service, social inclusion and human development of Roma in Slovakia in accordance with the Christian values ​​of solidarity, respect and integration.

Well, in terms of combatting racism and exclusion, the catholic church, and the Slovak one in aprticular, haven’t got a real track record…

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia and EU Funds

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Slovakia and EU Funds

The EU control commission, which is currently examining the use of EU funds in Slovakia, will also meet with the Roma MEP from the Slovakia movement, Peter Pollák. “MEPs will rightly ask why European taxpayers’ money should be spent on media houses, tree planting or other ‘soft’ projects, while people in settlements live without water, sewage and basic infrastructure. We have something to talk about,” he said. According to Pollák, hundreds of millions of euros are spent on analyses, strategic documents and training, but practically nothing has changed in Roma settlements over the years. He claims that people continue to live in inhumane conditions despite the fact that we have historically received the most money from the European Union to improve their lives – more than a billion euros.

  • S kontrolnou komisiou, ktorá v týchto dňoch preveruje využívanie eurofondov na Slovensku, sa stretne aj rómsky poslanec hnutia Slovensko Peter Pollák. In: Postoj. 27.05.2025. https://www.postoj.sk/176127/dnes-treba-vediet
News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Atlas of Roma Communities

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Atlas of Roma Communities

98 percent of the Slovak municipalities included in the sociographic mapping of Roma communities have already completed the registration, and all the necessary data has already been completed by 60 percent of the municipalities that stated that there are Roma localities on their territory. This was announced by the Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Slovak Republic for Roma Communities (ÚSVRK) on social networks.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Roma Spirit

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Roma Spirit

The Roma Spirit Award is in its 17th year. This year, it also focuses on promoting respect, inclusion and positive changes in society. Nominations for the award, which highlights personalities, organizations and initiatives to improve the lives of Roma men and women in Slovakia, are open until September 9, 2025.

The event officially kicked off on May 21 with a press conference in Bratislava attended by the organizers, members of the preparatory committee and project partners. Roma Spirit is announced by the Association for Culture, Education and Communication in cooperation with Slovak Television and Radio and the Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Slovak Republic for Roma Communities.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Roma Spirit

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Roma Spirit

From Wednesday (May 21), people can submit exceptional personalities, strong stories and concrete solutions for the Roma community to the 17th edition of Roma Spirit.

Roma Spirit showcases successful Roma people, but also projects that help those living in excluded communities. “It is very difficult to choose the right actors so that they can be the right finalists. I think that everyone who submits applications has won in their own way,” said Alexander Daško, the Slovak government’s plenipotentiary for Roma communities.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Bratislava and Neo Nazis

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Bratislava and Neo Nazis

On Tuesday (20.05.), the regional criminal police intervened in several places in Bratislava as part of the case of a masked neo-Nazi group that was planning to attack people in the capital. According to noviny.sk, the police detained more than 20 people. Among them were juveniles. However, their number may not be final.

This group had been targeting migrants and Roma in the capital for months.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia, Kindergarten, and Roma

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Slovakia, Kindergarten, and Roma

The intention of the Slovak Minister of Education Tomáš Drucker to introduce compulsory pre-primary education from the age of three is not only causing resentment among a group of parents who want to have their child at home at a young age, but also a consideration of whether it will be truly effective and quickly applicable in practice. Currently, it seems most likely that the ministry will need finances for this.

The Ministry of Education claims that it wants to help children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds with the law.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Municipal Work

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Slovakia: Municipal Work

The Slovak ministry of Labour wants to push for so-called “activation work” for long term unemployed. This means doing some menial jobs for municipalities, and, according to statistics, only 1 to 2% of people in this scheme find a job afterwards.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Children’s Music

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Children’s Music

Čeky Čháve Čhavorenge is the title of the third album by the Roma band Lomnické čháve and Marián Čekovský. It is an album on which children and their parents will find children’s rhymes set to music in Slovak and Romanes. Manager Tomáš Slebodník says how this whole project came about.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

International Catholic Commission for the Roma

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International Catholic Commission for the Roma

The annual meeting of the International Catholic Commission for the Roma (CCIT) took place in eastern Slovakia in recent days, attracting approximately 100 participants from 14 European countries. Slovakia was represented by more than 20 participants from cities and municipalities.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Memorial

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Memorial

Thirteen people, including four children, were executed by the Nazis in November 1944 in Valaská Belá in the Prievidza district of Slovakia. A monument commemorating the victims of the Roma Holocaust stands at the site of the mass execution.

  • Nacisti vo Valaskej Belej popravili 13 Rómov vrátane detí. In: Teraz. 02.05.2025. https://www.teraz.sk/regiony/nacisti-vo-valaskej-belej-popravili-13-r/875281-clanok.html
News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Kamiben

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Kamiben

She is known on social networks as Kamiben, but her real name is Lana. The twenty-eight-year-old Slovak with Romane roots, a native of eastern Slovakia, has loved art since childhood and wanted to create in a way that would give human meaning and help others. But most importantly, without prejudice.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Planting Trees …

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Planting Trees …

Apparently, the Slovak government is planning to plant trees next to Roma settlements and will use 60 mio Euros for this purpose.

The office of the Plenipotentiary for Roma communities explained that the alleged “planting of trees” is in fact an important multi-departmental project called Revitalization of the area near the settlements of marginalized Roma communities (MRK) through the employment of disadvantaged and endangered groups. The first main activity of this project is the Revitalization of neglected and polluted areas in urban and suburban areas of municipalities with the presence of Roma settlements. The aim is to remove illegally placed municipal waste in protected landscape areas near settlements, in connection with the employment of disadvantaged and endangered groups. The second main activity is the Support of forest cultivation and protection in areas near settlements in connection with the social integration of Roma through their employment in forestry.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Roma Settlements in Slovakia

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Roma Settlements in Slovakia

Ethnologist and Roma expert – Arne Mann (72) has worked at the Institute of Ethnology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences since 1983. He has been working near the settlements for approximately 40 years, thanks to which he is intimately familiar not only with Roma crafts and traditions, but also with the real causes of the ongoing problem.

In an interview with Aktuality.sk, he explained why the state’s treatment of non-profit organizations (which coincidentally were chosen by the current government of Robert Fico as an easy target to distract attention from the real difficulties of the people) is perhaps the worst mistake of all, and reminded that ethnic differences are not at all the most serious cause of the ongoing situation.

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