On the Holiday Square in Kruševac, the Roma Cultural Center organized a special program “Under the Christmas Star”.
The evening brought together a large number of Roma music lovers, as well as a large number of children who enjoyed the music on the ice rink.
in Skopje, Muharem is deeply attached to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and especially Sarajevo, which he often calls his “soulmate”.
His name is well-known in the former Yugoslavia, where he gained the status of one of the most famous singers, whose music, inspired by Roma and oriental styles, left an indelible mark on the art scene. He released his first album at the age of only 12. He is also an author and he published a translation of the Bible in Romanes.
The Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family (MPSVR) of the Slovak Republic presented a specific bill regulating the reduction of social benefits in the event that a person able to work refuses to work. The discussion on the withdrawal of social benefits began in the middle of last year.
The issue here? Roma. And the work that the ministry is proposing is very much in line to what is being done in Hungary, so called közmunka [communal / public work] meaning cheap labour based on 19th century technology.
Bad.
The Municipality of Bari has published the call for proposals to implement an Inclusion and integration project for Roma, Sinti and Caminanti children and adolescents, funded under the National Inclusion and Fight against Poverty Program 2021-2027 with over 457 thousand euros. The specific objective is the.
Inclusion of Roma children and young people at school in Bari.
Tuňa Castle in Slovakia is being saved after centuries of neglect. Lots of manual work, not least be cause the castle ruins cannot be accessed by vehicles. The project lead says they did a lot of work in 2024. “It helped a lot that we currently have 12 employees, ten workers, a coordinator and a foreman. It helped with carrying out the material that we need to get to the castle. At the same time, it also helped with the work on the castle, where we gradually created three Roma masonry teams and therefore work was done in two or three places at the same time.”
Well done to employ Roma here.
A small town in Eastern Slovakia, Gelnice, want to build social housing in the town. This raises fears, as many of the social beneficiaries are Roma. And their housing is bad.
But then, no one wants them as neighbours.
Bad.
An article about a politician asking how much money has been spent on Roma projects in the Roma settlement of Dobruška vas, where around 350 people live in the Municipality of Škocjan. A new kindergarten was inaugurated recently after the previous one was destroyed by arson. But apparently, this is the third time, money has been spent on a kindergarten.
Skopje’s public transportation is apparently discriminating against Roma, not stopping at stops in the Roma neighbourhood.
Bad.
Almost nothing in the French press about Roma this week. Only one article about the screening of a movie on the fake news of Roma abducting children in Arles, on January 24th.
A series of photographs of Christian Baptists Kalderaša from the Transcarpathian region of the Ukraine. As usual, these kind of articles pander to stereotypes. Roma palaces, “mysterious” Roma, etc…
Bad for all.
A published Bulgarian textbook contains 99 Roma songs, collected from the territory of present-day Bulgaria between 1950 and 1975. Songs about love, family songs, songs about heroes have been preserved. The man who preserved this for generations is Mustafa Aliyev, better known by his Bulgarian name Manush Romanov. Mustafa Aliyev dedicated his life to the development of the culture of his community. He belonged to the group of Sofia “Jerli”
He participated in the anti-fascist resistance. He was the editor-in-chief of the newspapers “Romano Esi” (Romanian) and “Nevo Drom” (New Road). He was the director of the “Roma” theatre, which was closed by the communists.
Relations between the Ribnica Roma, the municipal administration and the majority population have long been at a standstill, the state must put an end to this. On March 2, 2014, 16 Roma men and women from two Slovenian Roma settlements filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights for violation of the right to water. These are the settlements of Dobruška vas in Škocjan and Gori. They lost their case in 2022. But the situation has not improved at all…
A series in Radio entitled “A Bench Under the Free Sun” talks to Micka, a 74-year-old pensioner, who lives in a housing unit of the Public Housing Fund of the City of Ljubljana. On her father’s side, she has roots in the Roma community, where she also spent her childhood. She shares with us the challenges and trials she has faced throughout her life. She describes the discrimination she has faced as a Romni, who, despite poverty and difficult circumstances, maintains her identity and family ties. In the conversation, we learn how life has shaped her view of the world.
Alena Pataky, deputy mayor of the Ostrava-Přívoz municipal district and member of the Moravian-Silesian Regional Council for the ANO movement, found herself criticised for her openly racist statements about Roma in an interview with the Okraj.cz server. In the interview, Pataky suggested that the problems with the low success rate of Roma students in primary schools are due to the different genetic makeup and mentality of Roma, which she believes hinders their interest in education.
Jaroslav Bihary (61) from Nitra, co-founder of the Roma Civic Association Lovári, tells how these special days take place in Lovara Roma households.
An interview with Zea, a Romni whose grand-mother was the wirter Elena Lacková and who is an actress and singer.
The UNESCO has granted “temporary enhanced protection” to two significant cultural sites in Ukraine: the Literary Museum in Odessa and the Babyn Yar Memorial in Kiev. The move comes as the third anniversary of the Russian war in Ukraine approaches, which caused extensive damage to Ukrainian cultural heritage.
Babyn Yar commemorates the victims of the Nazi massacre of 1941, in which more than 33,000 Jews, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war died. In 2022, the monument was threatened when a Russian missile hit nearby, killing five people. The Holocaust memorial itself was unharmed, but the building intended for the new museum was damaged.
The Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Slovak Government for Roma Communities (ÚSVRK) wants to launch three national projects to support Roma communities in the first half of 2025. They will focus on helping municipalities draw on subsidy resources or supporting young Roma students. This was stated by the Director General of the European Programs Section of the ÚSVRK Ingrid Zúbková when reviewing the office’s activities over the past months.
On the other hand, they are also supporting segregating schools …
FR 
EN 
DE