Christine Sudbrock – Page 5

Project Market: New solutions to old Problems

Project Market – 21 and 22 April

In recent months, Roma and pro-Roma organizations in 10 countries have recommended good practices to each other. On 21 and 22 April, we will present 23 of these at an online project exchange. After this “project market”, every organisation will select and adapt at least one idea during the next year and a half, supporting each other on the way.

“New solutions to old problems – exchange of new type of approaches in the field of Roma integration” is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway GrantsFund for Regional Cooperation.

CHACHIPEN – Project launch event

CHACHIPEN – Project Launch event

CEPS, together with the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the European Roma Grassroots Organisations (ERGO) Network, the Federación de Asociaciones Gitanas de Cataluña (FAGIC), the Asociatia Fast Forward and the ARESEL Network of Romania, will launch a new project called “CHACHIPEN” (meaning truth in Romani language). The launch is organised in the run up to the 50^th International Roma Day, which takes place on 8 April.

CHACHIPEN’s key objectives are to advance the recognition and response to historically-rooted and systemic antigypsyism, to achieve justice, equality, non-discrimination and the full participation of Roma as equal citizens across Europe. The project employs an innovative approach, through the model of “Truth and Reconciliation Processes” to review the past rights violations and ongoing structural discrimination towards Roma, which hinder the implementation of the EU non-discrimination acquis.

The opening high-level panel with Vera Jourova, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, Dunja Mijatovic, Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe among others, will situate the discussion on recognising historically rooted antigypsyism within the wider EU and national policy context, and will provide some individual live testimonies (see full agenda here).

We will then discuss how to increase recognition of antigypsyism, how can we rebuild trust between Roma and non-Roma, and what is role can mainstream institutions play. Our experts will also discuss the differences in approach, from the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to the Expert Commissions on antigypsyism, as well as the role for Roma civil rights activism in the new EU Roma Strategic Framework for equality, inclusion and participation, and in the new EU anti-racism plan.

Organisers are looking forward to your questions and active participation and will ensure the translation of the conference into the Romani language. This session will be run in Zoom, you must register in advance to gain access to the meeting and the details to join will be sent one-hour prior of the event.

Relevant links:

Event link: 50th International Roma Day: Towards justice and building trust – CEPS

Registration link: 50th International Roma Day: Towards justice and building trust | Centre for European Policy Studies (ceps.eu)

Agenda of the conference: CHACHIPEN_-kick-off-conference-programme_final-draft_updated.pdf (ceps.eu)

Project description: CHACHIPEN_-short-description_updated_with_milestones_EClogo.pdf (ceps.eu)

This project is funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020). The content of the project’s outputs represents the views of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.

Ineffectiveness or misuse of EU funds

Ineffectiveness or misuse of EU funds

Synthesis report of case studies from ERGO Network members in 4 countries

In 2020, in the framework of ERGO Network’s Work Programme “Roma Included in Social Europe” funded by DG EMPL, ERGO members from Romania (Policy Centre for Roma and Minorities), Bulgaria (Integro Association), Hungary (Butterfly Development) and Slovakia (Roma Advocacy and Research Centre) conducted case studies to support monitoring of funds and to contribute to a better design of funding programmes.

More specifically, the case studies aimed to:

provide evidence of ineffectiveness and/or misuse of EU funds to the EC and managing authorities (not fulfilling the enabling conditions – not contributing to diversity, participation, combating discrimination)
give recommendations on how to design more effective funding programmes for of Roma inclusion
increase awareness of the importance of transparency in funding

The case studies showed that:

EU Roma related funds are not always implemented adequately or in the best interest of the Roma communities it intends to target.
Often Roma and CSOs are not consulted during the implementation of projects.
despite considerable EU funds spent, the precarious situation of Roma where investments took place is deepening.
There is a lack of adequate needs assessment of the target groups’ situation to measure the adequacy and efficiency of the proposed actions.
There are restrictive conditions for participation of NGOs, which in most cases limited in practice the participation of the Roma community itself as an active party in the implementation of activities.
The project implementation guidelines may discriminate against NGOs putting them at a disadvantage compared to other partners -i.e. NGOs cannot receive advance payments due to the impossibility of guaranteeing this payment
NGOs may have problems receiving project indirect costs, which may stop the process of effective management of project activities
There are unnecessary, bureaucratic requirements for reporting on activities, which further burdens the work of partner civil society organizations.
The management of the procedures may pose challenges for the implementation of projects. In Bulgaria, the procedure was conceived as integrated and is applied under two different operational programmes. In the process of implementation, however, the projects were divided into two parts, under 2 different programmes and Managing authorities, which had their own separate requirements, guidelines and procedures, often very different from one another – which made the reporting process very difficult at the expense of the implementation of activities.

The individual case studies can be downloaded at the end of each summary.

You can download the synthesis report here.

Call for an external evaluator

Call for external evaluator

ERGO Network is contracting an independent expert to evaluate its 2018-2021 work programme Roma Included in Social Europe funded by DG Employment’s EaSI Programme.

ERGO Network (www.ergonetwork.org) brings together over 30 members from across Europe and supports organisations with a common perspective on Roma grassroots empowerment and equal citizenship to challenge stereotypes and combat stigmatization. We mobilize and connect organisations and individuals that share and express our values – active citizenship, shared responsibility, and passion – to strengthen and empower Roma civil society involvement in decision-making at local, national and European level and to address existing shortcomings of policies targeted at Roma.

For the second time, we are supported by DG Employment through a 4-year Partnership Framework Agreement that allows us to work closely with our members and to advocate for better policies for Roma through our work programme entitled “Roma Included in Social Europe”.

Role of the evaluator

We are searching for an external evaluator to assess the achievements and lessons learned of the Framework Partnership Agreement between ERGO Network and DG Employment (2018-2021) entitled “Roma Included in Social Europe”.

The evaluator is expected to assess the achievements of ERGO in implementing the FPA and reaching the objectives set and to give recommendations for future work.

Specifically, the evaluator is expected to:

Conduct evaluation interviews with ERGO members and national stakeholders involved in the FPA together with ERGO staff to evaluate achievements on national level in 5 countries.
Interview relevant EU policy-makers and civil society partners to assess the achievements on European level.
Conduct workshops with ERGO staff and members to jointly assess our achievements, lessons learnt and recommendations.
Draft a report describing outcomes and achievements, lessons learnt and recommendations for improvements, also taking into account the findings of internal evaluations done in the first three years of the FPA.

Profile:

Excellent knowledge of evaluation methodology and experience with programme evaluations
Expertise on Roma issues and policies on European Union and member state level
Experience working with civil society organisations in the fields of advocacy, capacity-building and network building
Excellent writing skills and ability to concisely summarise evaluation results for different audiences
Excellent research and analytical skills
Ability to work independently
Additional language skills desirable

Conditions

The evaluation will be conducted throughout 2021, with the final report expected for December 2021.

Times for interviews and workshops with ERGO staff, members and stakeholders will be agreed with the selected consultant.

Contract and budget: The independent evaluator will be subcontracted to fulfil part of the work programme in the Framework Partnership Agreement between ERGO Network and DG Employment. The expert has no rights vis-à-vis the European Commission.

The expert shall be paid for the execution of the activities and services a fee of maximum 5,000 EUR, all taxes and VAT included.

Application procedure

Interested and qualified candidates should submit the following documents:

CV, highlighting past similar assignments
Proposed methodology, timeline and budgetary proposal, including envisaged number of working days

We will select the expert according to the principle “Value for money”. Please send your application to info@ergonetwork.org by April 15th 2021, 23:59 CET.

A detailed project summary can be provided upon request.

For further questions, please contact Christine Sudbrock at c.sudbrock@ergonetwork.org

In memory of Marcel Courthiade

In memory of Marcel Courthiade

Written by Saimir Mile, La Voix des Rroms

Marcel Courthiade passed away unexpectedly on March 4, 2021 in Tirana at 67. With him, the Roma lose an exceptional resource. His work remains a treasure that several generations will be able to use for the benefit of the emancipation of the Roma.

Born on August 2, 1953, on the 9th anniversary of the liquidation of the Zigeunerfamilienlager in Birkenau, it is as if he were destined to live for the renaissance of this people who had suffered so much. This probably explains why, after an exemplary school career, he abandoned his medical studies in the fifth year to devote himself to the study of languages. He managed to master countless numbers of them, but he especially chose to place Romani at the center of his interest. He dedicated his life to its defense and development, and through it to the defense of the identity and rights of the Roma.

His work always demonstrated a very high level of scientific expertise, exceptional humility and accessibility, and an especially unfailing devotion to the Roma cause. He was the architect of the development of a real linguistic policy with the principles of the unification of the Romani language adopted in 1990 in Warsaw by the 4th Congress of the International Romani Union, then chaired by Rajko Đurić, another recently deceased great personality of the international Roma movement of the time. It is on the basis of these principles that Romani is taught at the universities of Paris and Bucharest. It is also on this basis that he coordinated the drafting of the first European dictionary of the Romani language, aptly titled “From our elders, to our daughters and to our sons.”

Marcel, like other intellectuals and activists of his generation, was too far in advance to be fully understood. On February 28, 2021, on Albanian public television, he answered a journalist’s question regarding whether the Romani language was “made official”:

“It has been formalized by the Romani authorities, by the Romani institutions, but not by the States. But that’s normal […] the Romani authorities, that is to say the International Romani Union, the Commissioner for Language and Linguistic Rights etc., have formalized the Romani language very well. But the others do not recognize this formalization because it is about Romani instances. In fact, logically we must say that it is normal for a language to be formalized when it is formalized by its own institutions, not by others. But this is where there is a manipulation […], the others do not accept the existence of the Romani language. Maybe there will come a day, I don’t know; but for now, in the name of “diversity”, they say that there are several Romani languages, several dialects etc., which is not true. Italian or German for example have more dialects than Romani, but nobody says that Italian or German don’t exist. This is where the discrimination is located: the denial of the history of the Roma, the denial of their language, their literature, the alphabet, the “Kris” … It is really discrimination, which leads to the denial of the Roma nation, and when a nation does not exist, what rights can it claim? It is a very deep running and very cunning mechanism. “

These words sound like a testament today. It is up to current and future generations to grasp their full meaning in order to continue the fight for the dignity of the Roma, and therefore for their rights. We owe it to Marcel, and to all those who preceded us, and more or less trained us.