Anyone who wants to learn something about the history of the Sinti and Roma is in the right place from Sunday in the Paderborn City Museum. This is where the new exhibition “Racial Diagnosis: Gypsy” begins.
A project in Dobšina in Domček, in central Slovakia where teachers together with Romnja help children oif a Roma settlement catching up in their education. The project is not funded because some of the women helping out did not finish high school.
The teachers from Dobšina started almost ten years ago with a few young Roma mothers from the settlement. When we talk about young mothers, we do not mean the age of 18 and over, but children who have children while still in elementary school.
One of them are the now 26-year-old twins, Magdaléna and Mariana, both coaches in the project. Magdalena gave birth for the first time in the seventh grade at elementary school and again sometime later. Both have unfinished primary education, but they are clear in their heads. They want their children and the children of the Dobšina Roma to experience success.
An article in the Slovenian press about a young Romni who finished high school. The article claims she is the first Romni to achieve this is Moldova which is more than doubtful. The article, while well meant, actually serves all stereotypes of an archaic Roma society.
Maria Stoian, a Roma girl from Moldova, was raised by her grandmother. She encouraged her throughout her primary schooling and stood by her side, because in Moldova, the vast majority of Roma girls stop going to school after the age of thirteen. “In our country, girls get married at the age of 15 at the latest. I have 18. I’m already too old,” Maria laughs and continues: “Of course I’m thinking about having a family, about having children, but not before the age of 25.” It was because of her grandmother that she enrolled in high school after finishing elementary school school in the city of Soroca. “I was scared, I cried because I was afraid that they wouldn’t accept me, since I was the only Roma in the class. But those were the best years of my life. I feel free, here at school I can put off the mask that the traditional environment in the Roma community put on me, here I can do what I want, talk about anything and learn.”
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