Combatting antigypsyism – Page 8

Crowdfunding for Grid Detective Game – Autonomia Foundation

Crowdfunding campaign for Detective Game

The Autonomia Foundation and the Detectivity Creative Education and Experience Center have jointly developed the Grid Detective Game – following the successful implementation of other detective games with a similar social purpose. Our own experience and international research prove that the transfer of objective facts is not the most effective in shaping attitudes. It can also be said that many people, when they feel that a program wants to change their thinking or want to pass on some knowledge to them, distance themselves from it and lose interest. However, during detective games, participants are basically busy solving a crime, they are active all the way through – not just involved in knowledge transfer – so as they play, they almost unknowingly acquire knowledge and start thinking about topics they usually avoid. Furthermore, prejudices and stereotypes about the members of a group can be most effectively overwritten by a personal meeting and conversation with the members of the group.

In this game, both the player gaining knowledge and a personal encounter appear, as while participants have to investigate the details of a crime in a disadvantaged village, they can also meet in person with the suspected Roma boy, played by a professional Roma actor for authenticity. During the game, they learn a lot about the situation of the rural Roma in connection with the boy’s story and can identify with the boy step by step during the investigation. After the successful conclusion of the investigation, there will also be a conversation in which young people will be much more active, raising questions and thoughts on Roma integration than they would otherwise after the fresh experience and the excitement of the investigation.

The investigative game has already reached many groups of students and has proven to be successful and effective among the participants. At the same time, there are many classes and schools where such a program would be needed, but financial resources are not available.

Everyone can support the donation campaign to allow 100 young people to take part in the Grid Detective Game and to meet and face issues that redraw their image of disadvantaged Roma. You can support the campaign here.

The games will take place in the first half of 2021.

The new EU Roma Strategy and the fight against Antigypsyism in the Western Balkans

The new EU Roma Strategy and the fight against Antigypsyism in the Western Balkans

Despite limitation due to the pandemic of COVID 19, Roma Active Albania kept an active role in advocating for Roma inclusion in the Enlargement countries of the Western Balkans.

Combining distant working with field work, RAA coordinates the partners of the regional project “Romani Women, Power of Change in the Western Balkans and Turkey”, in following their national plans and providing information from the grassroots level to ERGO’s study on the impact of COVID 19 on Roma communities.

Thanks to the financial support of the European Union through the European Commission’s DG NEAR, RAA has been working jointly with its partners in the Western Balkans and Turkey to implement the components of the project “Romani Women, Power of Change in the Western Balkans and Turkey”. The last months focused on building synergies in regional advocacy in the context of the new EU Roma Strategy and the fight against antigypsyism.

RAA actively contributed to the organisation of the event “The new EU Roma Strategy and the fight against Antigypsyism in the Western Balkans”, which took place on 4 November 2020 via the Zoom platform.

This virtual conference addressed strategies and measures to combat antigypsyism and to strengthen Roma empowerment and participation in the Western Balkans in the context of the new “EU Roma strategic framework for equality, inclusion and participation” for 2020-2030. The conference brought together governments, international organizations and civil society representatives from all countries in the Western Balkan region.

The new EU Framework guides the commitment of EU Member States and defines the core policy for Roma equality, inclusion and participation in the accession and neighbourhood countries. A key priority of the new framework is to recognize and to fight antigypsyism as the root cause of discrimination and social exclusion. Combatting antigypsyism should be done in a combined approach as a stand-alone task and as cross-cutting issue in the priority areas education, employment, housing and basic services, health and poverty, and keeping a special focus on Roma Women empowerment.

Following this event, RAA participated in and coordinated three national virtual conferences on the same topic, addressing the realities and challenges in Kosovo, Serbia and Albania.

These conferences were organised by Roma Active Albania, ERGO Network and the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, in partnership with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement and with support of the European Union and German Federal Foreign Office.

FAGIC events with Roma women

FAGIC events with Roma women

In November FAGIC organised two events focused on Roma women, as 25 November is the International Day to eradicate violence against women.

The first debate “Leisto thaj phanel: rights and dialogue against antigypsyism” revolve around the role of Roma women in the fight against antigypsyism and discrimination. Roma women’s rights risk to be perceived as secondary in general policies addressing antigypsyism, even though the achievement of equal rights for Roma women is crucial in the fight against antigypsyism itself.

You can watch the event in Spanish here.

The second event “Romija thaj gadche vakeripen kotar sastipen: Roma and non-Roma women talking about health” tackled the issue of health rights for women from minority groups, and in particular reproductive rights of Roma women and the importance of creating protocols to ensure no women health rights are violated because of difference in beliefs and culture.

You can watch it in Spanish here.

UN Side event on discrimination based on work and descent

UN Side event on discrimination based on work and descent

Since 2019, as a consequence of ERGO Network’s work on the Sustainable Development Goals for Roma inclusion, ERGO Director Gabriela Hrabanova works together with the Global Forum on Discrimination on Work and Descent (GFoD), the Asia Dalit Rights Forum and other global minority organisations to raise awareness of the important topic Discrimination based on Work and Descent (DWD) at the United Nations level and to bring together Roma with other communities victims of DWD.

In the framework of the 2020 United Nations General Assembly, a series of side events took place in New York and online organised by GFoD and with the support of the Permanent Mission of Germany in New York, which attracted the participation of politicians and members of civil society from across the world. Besides ERGO Network Director Gabriela Hrabanova also Member of the European Parliament Romeo Franz (Greens/EFA) was a panelist in the meeting.

This year, due to the pandemic, the Forum took the form of a Round Table with 15 Parliamentarians from countries in Africa (Somalia, Niger, Mauritania), Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), Brazil and Europe (Germany, Spain, Slovakia, Belgium).

The discussions focused mostly on the strategies for the caucus of MPs to make appropriate and effective interventions at both UN & Regional Bodies, and with bilateral bodies/processes towards the elimination of DWD globally. An additional topic was the outlining of measures for building up the International Parliamentarians Forum on DWD to operate as an effective platform at global and regional level.

The participants discussed best practices and possible strategies at local, national, regional and UN level to improve the fight against DWD.

Discrimination based on work and descent affects around 260 million people worldwide. Communities discriminated on work and descent are one of the most excluded and segregated groups globally, and this affects their daily social, economic, political, civil and cultural life. Compared to the majority population in their respective countries, Dalits in South Asia have less access to education, communities of former and modern slavery in Mauretania are economically deprived and Roma in Europe have less access to health care and services.

International cooperation around the topic of DWD has been gaining momentum since 2015, when DWD communities looking for solidarity beyond their own countries and communities found similar discrimination practices among African, European and Latin American communities and founded The Inclusivity Project at international level. But the kick-off for the Forum was a Round Table at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Senegal in New York in 2019. Seven parliamentarians from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Somalia and Sri Lanka have discussed DWD and options for action with representatives from European Roma networks, the African Network on DWD and Slavery, the Asia Dalit Rights Forum and Quilombola from Brazil.

As a consequence of all endeavours in the last decades the Global Forum on DWD – against Casteism, Antigypsyism & Traditional and contemporary forms of slavery has been formed during the first Congress on DWD in September 2019 in New York with representation by descendants of former slaves, Burakumin, Dalis, Quilomboa, Sinti & Roma.

PECAO peer educators training online and offline

PECAO peer educators training online and offline

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the work we usually do and the way we implement our projects. ERGO Network together with its partners in the framework of the “Peer education to counter antigypsyist hate speech” (PECAO) project adapted to this new situation and moved on with the project implementation.

Peer educators are the most crucial part of PECAO. They receive training to conduct peer education workshops and activities with other young people, as well as monitor and report hate speech online.

Due to the restrictions and health measures in place, ERGO Network and Integro Association combined an online and offline training for the group of 50 peer educators to make the best out of the situation for everyone.

Those who could not travel to Bulgaria had the opportunity to follow an online training course from to 13 August, and those able to travel to Bulgaria had their offline training course in Albena from 10 to 15 August 2020.

Our partner Integro took care of all necessary measures to ensure safety of the participants in the offline training by respecting all protocols when it comes to protection against Covid-19.

During both trainings, the participants could work with and be trained by professionals in the field of addressing hate speech. For example, with Prof. Tomova the participants received information about the impact of stereotypes and prejudices and how media constructs, reinforces and consolidates negative stereotypes and prejudices against Roma. They also worked on content analysis of media products that target Roma.

Throughout the training course, participants had the opportunity to share their experiences and knowledge on the topic, and experts such as lawyers Ms. Mihaylova and Mr. Kashamov introduced the international frameworks that protects against hate speech, as well as shared and made comparison with their national legislation.

The training ended with practical exercises of writing complaints and signal against hate speech, as well as understanding the standards of various social networks for countering hate speech online.

As next step, the peer educators and mentors of the PECAO project will start with their peer education and monitoring activities, which are going to last from October 2020 until September 2021. ERGO Network and its partners will keep you updated on the implementation.

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