A testimony of Roma parents faced with racism against their children and faced with the outright discrimination from teachers.
Bad.
No surprise, Travellers and Roma face hurdles in higher education.
Bad.
According to e recent study presented at a conference on the “State of Roma educational integration: from segregation to education in an ethnically mixed environment”, organized by the “Amalipe” center (link is external) on July 4 and 5 in Sofia, almost 1/2 of the schools in our country have a majority of children from vulnerable groups (so Roma and other minorities).
This amounts more and more to a form of segregation.
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Auschwitz Museum, a commemorative album “75 years of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial Site” has been published. It is divided into six chapters: the establishment of the museum, the survivors at the memorial site, preservation of authenticity, education and memory, visits and the caretakers of the memorial site.
Photographs illustrating events in the history of the museum are accompanied by quotations from letters and entries in the commemorative book, mainly by leaders of states and international organizations, which emphasize the role and importance of the place. The album ends with a calendar of the most important events in the history of the museum.
The package of laws passed by the finance minister Igor Matovič is not good for poor families. The allowance for first-year students will be abolished, the poorest will only receive a small tax bonus, and the state will take half of the allowances for children whose parents do not send them to school – although the parents no longer receive the money, but the municipality. This last measure clearly aimed at Roma.
Bad.
The United Nations (UN) has warned for many years that climate change will hit the most vulnerable population groups with the lowest ability to adapt. In Slovakia, they are mainly residents of Roma settlements who, even in 2022, often live without access to basic infrastructure, education or drinking water. “It’s hard to convince people in a poor area to triage at all when they don’t have access to drinking water or sewage. Many people in Slovakia and Europe live in the conditions of the African continent. It is very difficult to talk to them about climate change,” stated MEP Peter Pollák (OĽaNO/EPP) at the discussion Green change from below, organized by the EURACTIV Slovakia portal.
The Advisory Committee of the Council of Europe (CoE) to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities called on the Slovak authorities to eliminate discrimination against Roma children in education and to improve the mechanism for promoting cultures of national minorities. RE spokesman Jaime Rodríguez informed TASR on Wednesday.
Some improvements, lots to do still…
The Roma community in Gračanica is facing a number of problems, but it is now increasingly understood that education is a path that opens a better future for the community.
A survey conducted by Laura Kovač, a student at the Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor, Slovenia, as part of her master’s thesis, showed that Roma students in Prekmurje and Dolenjska feel comfortable in primary school. Discrimination and stereotypes are still present, but Roma students mostly describe school relations as good.
Somewhat doubtful…
Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová returned a proposed law to the parliament. The law is on financing the child’s leisure time, in which deputies propose, among other things, that child allowances be reduced depending on the pupil’s regular participation in school. This provision was included in the bill after the extreme right from the ĽSNS requested the Minister of Finance Igor Matovič. According to Marian Kotleb, the reduction of allowances was one of four changes that they “pushed” into the law. Probably in such an alliance, although not surprising to me, it should be noted that this is a measure aimed mainly at Roma children.
It will do nothing to further school attendance.
An article on Roma employment or rather lack thereof in Slovenia. And all usual stereotypes are there, low education, they do not see the point to work and so on.
Only one thing is not mentioned: No Slovene will employ Roma …
Not much news in France this week. A camp near Paris was dismantled; a educational book presented in Marseilles; some issues near Montpellier’s new transition camp; and a Rom condemned for aggressions in Meaux.
The Murska Sobota Development Center has organized a first “international” Roma conference at the RIS Dvorec Rakičan, aimed at exchanging views on education and political and social inclusion of the Roma community. The director of the Office for Nationalities, Stane Baluh, estimated that in Slovenia the legal and formal issues regarding participation are well regulated, but they are lame in practice.
Effectively, Roma are segregated…
In Pleven, Bulgaria, Roma children will be included in sports clubs in football, tennis and basketball. The idea is to “socialise” children and students from ethnic minorities through sports, explained Ivaylo Lazarov, director of the Student Sports School (USS) in Pleven, which won funding for its project “To play sports together, albeit different”.
What this also implicitly says: Up till now, Roma children were not included … That says a lot.
Dozens of Roma civic activists from Gemer, Novohrad and Malohont in Slovakia have been participating in activities aimed at furthering their involvement in cultural, social and communal events in the region since the autumn of 2019. The project, implemented by the Láčho drom cultural and educational association from Kokava nad Rimavicou in the Poltár district, was supported by the European Social Fund through the Operational Program Effective Public Administration in the amount of EUR 338,625, of which five percent was co-financing.
A reportage in Nyiregyhaza, in Eastern Hungary, in a day care centre in a Roma settlement. What the reportage omits to say here, is that these schools and day-care centres are de-facto segregated, as no non-Roma ever goes there. De facto, this perpetuates the segregation.
The Strategy for Equality, Inclusion and Roma Participation until 2030 is now officially translated into a first action plan. The proposal of assignments and tasks for the period 2022 – 2024 was approved by the government at its Wednesday meeting.
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.
Let’s see.
Discriminations against Roma are an everyday occurrence in German schools.
Almost no news on Roma in France this week: A town in Northern France is working hard to enrol young Roma in schools; a Romni telling stories to children in Nantes; and the removal of garbage in the vicinity of a Roma squat in Marseilles.
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