Tag Archives: Education

Education and Minorities

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An article about the issue of seggregated schools versus the right to being taucht in one’s language. Background is the current drive by the Fico government to set up a school in Eastern Slovakia where teaching will be done in Romanes.

This is a false debate. All Roma who speak Romanes are dual language speakers. They speak the local language and Romanes. Desegregation is thus the key here, together with some courses about Romanes. Segregation and Romanes only schools will certainly no solve any issue.

Lausanne, Roma, and School

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Roma families were recently evicted from a building that was deemed insalubrious. Now the children are in the street and at risk to be out of school.

Bad.

Czechia, a Military Region, and Roma

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The story of a small vilalge called Květušín in Czechia, a village that was once German, and whose population was deported after the war, and became a military district. Roma settled there and the govrnment created a special school for Roma, promising children would be taken good care. The idea, however, was the create new people, and insulate them from their Roma background.

Slovenia: A Successful Settement?

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The local community of Pušča shows a rather different image of a Roma settlement compared to the Roma settlements in Dolenjsko. In the village there is a shop, a fire brigade, a football club and also a bookstore. The kindergarten, which has been around for more than 60 years, is especially important.

In the Romano kindergarten in Pušča, in addition to the teachers, there is also a Roma helper who makes sure that the children from the village get used to everyday life in the kindergarten as soon as possible.

Nice, but this is segregated schooling, which is not good.

 

Slovenia: Another View on a Roma Settlement

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We are not all the same, say the Roma at the community center in the Brezje Roma settlement in Novo Mesto. The coordinator for Roma groups at the DRPD, Elzana Adnan Odjoski, deals with them there. She runs a program aimed at teenagers and young mothers, in which young people from the age of 15 are involved.

The young mothers agree that their children should go to kindergarten, but not to a Roma kindergarten, but to a normal kindergarten, where they get to know other children and learn the language at the same time. They also said that “Some talk to us, some don’t even look at us, and some immediately run away when they see us”.

Czechia: Children’s Book

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The illustrated book Jekh, duj, trin! [One, two, three!] introduces children to the everyday life and traditions of an ordinary Roma family and prepares them to enter school.

Well, with a few stereotypes…

Schools in Slovakia

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With a camera, the staff of Slovak Television went to the village of Rakúsy in the Kežmar district to see the beginning of the school year. In the Osada (the Roma settlement), the number of pupils is increasing. Due to limited capacity, the school has two-shift teaching.

We Grow

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The twenty-third meeting of Roma high school and university students called BARUVAS, which means “We grow” in Romani, starts today, August 23. This week-long summer school will be characterized by education, inspiring workshops focused on personal growth, self-knowledge and a deeper understanding of Roma history. Participants will have the opportunity to participate in a variety of activities that will offer them new knowledge and skills that they can use in their personal and professional lives.

Slovakia, Schools, and Roma

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Two teachers from Dobšina found a way to attract children from poor Roma families. In four years in their experimental class, not a single student failed. Another 85 children will start school in the fall, who have the chance to experience a different approach.

The problem are textbooks. They cannot yet be purchased from a state grant. So these teachers started a fundraiser.

Good.

Reaction to the Slovak Experiment

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A Slovak MP, Ingrid Kosova criticizes the project of the Ministry of Education to teach Roma children in Romanes. She says that up to 65 percent of Roma children encounter segregation during education. They do not encounter other children, they lose the opportunity to escape from the environment of generational poverty. It is not just a historical, cultural or economic question. It is first and foremost a deeply moral question. The consequences of segregation in schools are humiliating and dehumanizing. First of all, politicians can change it. However, they are failing miserably, and the result is that, according to the data of the European Union, Slovakia is the worst in terms of segregation among the member states. And the situation continues to worsen.

Slovakia and Roma Education

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The Slovak Ministry of Education launched a pilot project where Roma children are taught in Romanes. This is a scandal and cementing the segregation of Roma in school. It certainly will not help integration.

Ethel Brooks

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Ethel Brooks is now a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey. People of Roma origin often face racist prejudices that make it impossible for them to rise in the professional hierarchy. Ethel also had such problems. “It very often happened to me that some of my classmates told me: “Gypsy, your place is in the corner!”, she says. When she tells the story, there is no anger in her voice, but the sadness is palpable.

Well done.

Czechia: Education Grants

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Lucie Fuková, government commissioner for Roma minority affairs, speaks about the new call for project entitled PRO-ROMA, launched by the Operational Program Jan Amos Komenský (OP JAK), which has earmarked 300 mio Czech Crowns towards education projects.

Applicants from Roma and pro-Roma organizations will be able to draw funds to support informal education, cooperation with parents or the public.

Czechia: Scholarships

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Roma students of secondary and higher professional schools as well as university students can apply for a scholarship from the ROMEA organization for the school and academic year 2024/2025 from Monday 17 June to Monday 22 July. The scholarship program of the ROMEA organization was launched in 2016, and since then a total of 605 scholarships worth 10.025 million crowns have been distributed to 301 students. ROMEA will support 20 more students this year than last year. A total of one hundred Roma students will be able to receive a scholarship.

Roma and Czech Schools

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A dreadful reportage in a segregated school in the Czech Republic. Karel Rajchl, the director of the Vojanova Elementary School in Děčín says that getting children and their families to cooperate is often almost impossible.

“Shh, they’re writing a test,” she warns, upon entering the seventh-grade physics class. The teacher replies “It doesn’t matter, they can’t do anything anyway”. In the last pews, two boys don’t even bother to have an open notebook in which to calculate the task entered on the blackboard, they just giggle. “These boys are one step away from raping our young female teachers,” states principal Rajchl dryly as he leaves the class again.

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Witch School

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In Romania, women from the impoverished Roma community see witchcraft as a means of taking social revenge. Under construction since 2011, the first witch school in the world aims to preserve their traditions. Between feminist discourse, 2.0 spells and commodified folklore, it is difficult to see clearly in the land of the occult.

rroma.org
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