A testimony of Roma parents faced with racism against their children and faced with the outright discrimination from teachers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A video and interviews on the discrimination of Roma in high schools in Romania. From the actress Alina Serban.
The Roma language with elements of Romani culture will be introduced in schools in the Tuzla Canton as of September, Indira Bajramović, president of the Association of Roma Women “Better Future”.
A report on a project for the inclusion of Roma in pre-school age that employed 233 Roma last year in Slovakia.
To fight against child labor, and particularly young Roma, Albanian teachers’ unions are mobilizing, trying to prevent school dropouts. But difficult to fill all the gaps of a drifting system.
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.
Around 60 youngsters from the Albert Einstein School (AES) will now be able to guide their classmates through an exhibition entitled “The Path of the Sinti and Roma”. They have been trained accordingly. The students are involved in a project called “School without Racism – School with Courage”.
The European Commission (EC) and the Council of Europe (CoE) are looking for 144 counselling service providers with specific expertise in inclusive education practices and policies for Roma children.
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.
A book written and concepted by Roma children aims at changing perceptions of Roma.
Although the municipality of Škocjan does not officially have an autochthonous Roma minority and thus no Roma councillor, there are more Roma there every year. More than three hundred Roma already live in two settlements in Dobruška. This means that in a municipality with about 3,400 inhabitants, about ten percent of the Roma population already has. The school already has a fifth or 20 percent of schoolchildren are Roma children.
The settlements have water, and the municipality installed chemical toilets.
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