Christine Sudbrock – Page 6

International Women’s Day 2021

International Women’s Day 2021

Opre phenjalen! – Rise sisters!

Since the adoption of the International Women’s Day, women of all colors, creed and belonging across the globe carved their way to greater freedoms and recognition of their strengths, independence and self-determination.

However, societal inequalities and broader racial injustice continue to ascribe and influence social norms and the roles and value of groups of women in our society. Roma and Traveller women continue to be some of the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised on multiple levels, including inside their own communities. In addition, they face intersectional forms of discrimination and antigypsyism and extreme social exclusion and poverty.

With the Covid-19 pandemic, the situation of Roma and Traveller women got even worse. Extreme poverty, inadequate housing and lack of health coverage mean that they are both more likely to be exposed to the virus, and to delay or avoid health care either due to lack of health insurance or limitations on transport, putting their lives at greater risk. During the pandemic Roma and Traveller women continued to perform essential frontline jobs, such as in care professions, as shop or cleaning staff etc. With the closing of schools and workplaces, the unpaid work of Roma and Traveller women has further increased, and they are also more likely to care of the ill. Even without a pandemic, caring and household responsibilities tend to fall disproportionately on women’s shoulders.

Today, ERGO Network celebrates all women across the world, but especially the Roma and Traveller women who work day in, day out to make ends meet and to support their families and communities, with little recognition and while faced with numerous obstacles. Without the contribution of Roma and Traveller women, the fight against inequality is not complete!

We join their efforts to promote equality, dignity and women’s human rights for all women. We call on governments and the international community to:

To combat individual and institutional antigypsyism at all levels, including intersectional and multiple forms of discrimination through the development and implementation of policies and legislation that adequately address the situation of Roma and Traveller women.
To create opportunities for Roma and Traveller women to access decent work with adequate pay, as well as to tackle the gender and ethnic pay and pension gaps, to ensure that Roma and Traveller women in paid employment are not doubly penalised by receiving reduced income for equal work.
To put in place the necessary measures for Roma and Traveller women to be able to access quality and affordable health care (including sexual and reproductive health and rights), as well ashousing and accommodation and
To improve access to childcare and long-term care for Roma and Traveller families, by supporting community-based, free care facilities, employing also Roma and Traveller staff.
To invest in specific, adequate financial support for Roma and Traveller single parent households, most of which are led by women, to assist with childcare, rent payments and other household expenses.
To end all forms of gender-based violence and abuse which disproportionately affect Roma and Traveller girls and women, including by repairing historic injustices such as forced sterilization.
To dismantle gender stereotypes and ideas about traditional gender roles in mainstream society, so as to encourage more men, including Roma men, to pick up their fair share of unpaid work at home.
To support increased visibility and direct representation of Roma and Traveller women and girls in social, cultural, civil and political life
To ensure that Roma culture, language and history are recognized, respected, and resourced
To promote and supportRoma and Traveller women’s participation and empowerment in policy and decision-making at all levels, including by international organisations.

We are falsely encouraged that today women are more empowered and better represented politically, but in reality women’ s rights are still constantly questioned and gender stereotypes prevail – especially for women who suffer from intersecting forms of discrimination such as of race, socio-economic status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity etc.

Let’s fight together for equal rights of Roma and Traveller women!

Opre phenjalen! – Rise sisters!

Roma inclusion in the Community-Led Local Development

Roma inclusion in the Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) cycle 2014-2020

Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) is an initiative for involving citizens at local level in developing responses to today’s social, environmental, and economic challenges, and a promising tool for investing in Roma inclusion. Unemployment, poverty, and social exclusion, which are key topics for Europe’s Roma, are among the challenges that the EU has identified for CLLD. Approved CLLD strategies can mean that significant EU funds are available for several years to support those activities and investments that matter the most. The European Commission equally expects CLLD to give ownership to beneficiaries, with a special focus on marginalized communities, through capacity building, empowerment, full transparency, and sharing of the decision-making power.

ERGO Network invests in and supports (pro-) Roma NGOs, community-based organisations, and Roma activists to become involved in CLLD initiatives in their countries, so that as many CLLD strategies as possible tackle Roma exclusion. During 2020, ERGO Network members conducted comprehensive research in three key countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Romania), to evaluate the functioning and implementation of the CLLD cycle 2014-2020, with a view to assessing the extent to which Roma inclusion was mainstreamed throughout the CLLD processes, in what concerns both the content of the activities, as well as stakeholder involvement. The partners carrying out this research were Integro Association (Bulgaria), Slovo 21 (Czech Republic), Nevo Parudimos (Romania).

The objectives of the evaluation were:

To provide evidence on the inclusion of Roma in all stages of the CLLD process
To assess the quality of Roma inclusion in development strategies and funded projects
To empower Local Action Groups through increased knowledge of CLLD and strengthen accountability mechanisms at local level
To empower Roma to take part in the CLLD processes
To provide recommendations on improvements in the CLLD process to foster Roma inclusion for the next programming period
To showcase good practices of CLLD projects which put the Roma at their core.

Download the full synthesis evaluation report here!

#WeRemember

International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2021 – ERGO Network statement

In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated 27 January as the international commemoration day in memory of the millions of victims of the Holocaust. On 27 January 1945 the Red Army liberated the Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz, where millions of people were murdered. The Roma children, men and women from the so-called “Gypsy Family Camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau did not live until this liberation day. The last of them, almost 3 000, had been sent to the gas chambers several months prior, on 2 August 1944, as part of the Nazis’ so-called “Final Solution to the Gypsy Question”. Sometimes known as the “Forgotten Holocaust,” the Roma Genocide was excluded from the history of World War II for decades after the end of the war.

Every year on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember all victims of the Holocaust and send a warning to today’s world: Let’s not forget that the Holocaust started with words – words that are still around us today. Gabriela Hrabanova, Director of ERGO Network states: “Antigypsyism has never stopped and even increased during the pandemic. We cannot allow that once again we and other minorities are scapegoated and our humanity is stripped away. Let us all work together to stop the hate and ensure that history will never be repeated”.

Transparency criteria now available in Bulgarian, Romanian, Lithuanian

Transparency criteria now available in Bulgarian, Romanian, Lithuanian

ERGO Network’s transparency and accountability criteria give recommendations on how grassroots civil society organisations should be governed and managed in order to be reliable and accountable. Fulfilling the criteria will bring attention to an organisation’s quality work. The set of criteria focuses on governance, financial management and performance.

The criteria were developed in 2018 by ERGO Network members from the EU, Turkey and Western Balkans. Besides the criteria as such, the consortium developed a board game that helps civil society organisations to reflect on the criteria inside their own organisations and supports them in improving their internal policies and procedures.

After the success of this project, the criteria and the game were now translated into three additional languages – Lithuanian, Bulgarian and Romanian. They are available online and in print from our member organisations Roma Community Centre (Lithuania), Nevo Parudimos (Romania) and Integro Association (Bulgaria).

The translations have been produced in the framework of the project “New solutions to old problems – exchange of new type of approaches in the field of Roma integration” funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation. They are furthermore part of ERGO Network’s Annual Work Programme “Roma Included in Social Europe”, funded by the European Commission’s EaSI Programme.

Please visit www.ergonetwork.org/transparency to download the criteria and the game in all languages.

Recommendations for national strategic Roma frameworks

Recommendations for the national strategic frameworks under the new EU Roma strategic framework for equality, inclusion and participation

On 7 October 2020, the European Commission published a Communication to the European Parliament and the Council on the new Strategic Framework for Roma Equality, Inclusion and Participation for 2020-2030. The new framework is replacing the previous EU framework for national Roma integration strategies 2011-2020. The new framework is a positive step in the right direction; it shifts the perspective of the previous EU framework to a more balanced approach between social inclusion, human rights and empowerment objectives. It asks Member States and Enlargement countries to develop national strategic frameworks (NSFs), not just strategies, proposing an intersectional approach to tackle discrimination and defining intersectional discrimination as such for the first time. The new framework includes a good reference to antigypsyism using the spelling proposed by the Alliance against Antigypsyism. The framework addresses Enlargement countries on an equal footing and acknowledges the importance of the Western Balkan region for the EU, while the Neighbourhood countries are mentioned for the first time in relation to Roma inclusion under the current framework.

ERGO Network has developed a set of recommendations for national governments that should be prioritised when developing national strategic frameworks in the first months of 2021.

These recommendations have been developed based on ERGO Network’s previous policy and monitoring work in the area of equality, inclusion and participation of Roma and on valuable on-the-ground input from ERGO Network’s member organisations across Europe and from Roma and pro-Roma organisations members of the EU Roma Policy Coalition.

You can access the recommendations here.

The following organisations contributed to the recommendations:

European Public Health Alliance (EPHA)
Open Society Public Policy Institute (OSEPI)
European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC)
Phiren Amenca
European Network against Racism (ENAR)
Roma Active Albania
Roma Association Utrecht ,Netherlands
National federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups, UK
La voix des Rroms, France
Slovo 21, Czech Republic
Integro Association, Bulgaria