A picture which is impossible not to notice.
The EU driven Strategy for Equality, Inclusion and Roma Participation until 2030 takes the form of the first action plan. The proposal of assignments and tasks for the period 2022-2024 was submitted by the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic to an interdepartmental comment procedure.
The action plan proposes measures in five priority areas: The areas of employment, education, health and housing are key to meeting the goals of the strategy, special emphasis is also placed on intensifying interventions in the fight against anti-Roma racism.
Jan Hero, the plenipotentiary for Roma Communities for the Slovak Government, highlighted the fact that Slovakia import workers, from the Ukraine and other countries while not giving work to their own Roma.
He praised all Roma working.
They not only face discrimination from the society at large, but also from their own families.
Up to one billion Euro is earmarked for Roma integration from the EU. In addition. Another 150 Mio are to be granted as part of the Covid Recovery. This is quite a sum, but how will it be spent?
The Slovak Roma Union went to court for an alleged attack by a policeman against 5 Roma children in a Roma settlement during a quarantine. The children apparently had strayed too far from the settlement.
In a resolution on January 20, the investigator referred to a section of the Criminal Procedure Code, which states that the prosecution is stopped if “there is no doubt that the act for which the prosecution is being conducted has not occurred”.
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In socially excluded Roma groups in Slovakia, the number of deaths in earlier waves of coronavirus infection grew twice as fast as in the majority population. At the same time, the Covid-19 epidemic has halted the increasing employment of Roma, and the negative effects of the coronavirus crisis may be more pronounced for this group of Roma, as up to four-fifths of them were already at risk of poverty before the pandemic.
Representatives of the civic association eduRoma claim in an open letter that the Minister of Finance of the Slovak Republic Igor Matovič (OĽaNO) is building rough walls between the current government of the Slovak Republic and the civic sector.
The controversy follows the allocation of 330’000 EUR to the Conference of Bishops of Slovakia to support missionary pastoral work in Roma communities and ignoring the work of other NGOs and churches.
Where are the Roma in the Census? There is a lot of excitement, even outrage at the fact that Roma in their large majority, did not declare themselves as Roma in the latest Slovak census, but rather as Slovak or in quite a few cases as Hungarians.
Well, first, they are Slovaks… Whether the majority population likes it or not. Second, asking for ethnicity is fraught with problems. Third, the main reason people will not declare themselves as a minority is simple: Racism and discrimination. That question is absent from the articles on the topic.
Sad.
The case of Nižný Slavkov, a small town in Eastern Slovakia, where none of the roughly 230 the Roma living in the local Osada (Settlement) declared themselves as Roma in the census, saying that they are Slovaks (which, by the way it technically correct).
Nine Roma who sued for having been evicted under the pretext of “waste collection” in 2012 by the then mayor Richard Raši (then Smer, now Hlas) from their homes in the Nižné Kapustníky district of Košice, have finally won in court.
It is a moral win, they lost their homes and were awarded 1’000 EUR each…
According to the Slovak Government, patients from the Roma community are twice as likely to die from Covid than the rest of the population. It is a combination of low vaccination, low living standards, insufficient health knowledge and high population density in these communities.
The person arrested for the murder of a young teacher, Ashling Murphy, is a Slovak, and apparently also Rom. This is bad. A Slovak MP, Peter Pollak, urged to refrain from collective guilt on Roma.
The Slovak view on the intervention of the Slovak MP Peter Pollak on the arrest of a suspect for the murder of the Irish teacher Ashling Murphy.
The findings of the Slovak 2021 Census do not reflect the real numbers of the Roma community in Slovakia. The survey of the Atlas of Roma Communities and the estimates of local governments estimate the number of Roma at 450’000.
A recent study has shown the abysmal differences of living conditions of Roma in Settlements in comparison to the rest of the population. The settlements need water, schools, and a minimum of infrastructure and services.
Martina Horňáková, author of a Romanes-Slovak phraseological dictionary, which received the Roma Spirit 2021 award for Act of the Year says “When you don’t know the difference between Gypsy and Roma, you have no idea that Romanes has its grammar, nice phrases, phraseology, riddles, spelling, short stories – you can’t be proud of your culture or language.”
The pianist Miroslav Rác decided to dedicate his music to the victims of the Holocaust. Especially on the Roma one.
Miroslav Rác grew up in a family of musicians and was drawn to music as a child. “I chose the piano. I’ve been living classical music since I was a child,” he explains.
His family had a tragic personal experience. “Many of my parents’ relatives died in concentration camps. My grandfather was even in a few, but fortunately he survived them.” That is why Rác has been intensively concentrating on the Holocaust since studying at the Dezider Kardoš Conservatory in Topoľčany.
An article about a schoolteacher, teaching at a Roma school, who says schoolbooks need to be made more attractive. To make it easier for Roma children, she designed special workbooks with letters for dyslexics.
She definitively helps Roma in her school. Whether her approach is the right one remains to be seen.
Another photographer on marginalised Roma communities in Slovakia.
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