community organising – ERGO Network

Exchange visit to Pavee Point, Ireland

Exchange visit to Pavee Point, Ireland

From 24 to 27 May 2022 ERGO Network and its members visited Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre in Dublin, Ireland, to learn about the situation of Irish Travellers and Roma communities in Ireland and the invaluable work of Pavee Point for these communities. Among the fellow member organizations who attended were staff from Integro in Bulgaria and RomanoNet from the Czech Republic.

On the first day, our group visited the social enterprise called Shuttle Knit in Wicklow (around a 1-hour drive from Dublin). Shuttle Knit started over 20 years ago as a partnership between the Traveller and settled communities, with the mission to improve the quality of life for Traveller Women and their families through social enterprise. Traditionally, Traveller women worked by selling door-to-door, at markets and fairs. However, recent Irish legislation has created barriers that prevent Traveller women from selling in the ways in which they did in the past, and so they needed to adapt and change.

One of Shuttle Knit’s goals is to bring inclusion into the labour market through social enterprise. The enterprise provides jobs and training to 11 women who are part of the local Travelling Community in Wicklow. The impact is that their staff have a secure income, and a sense of purpose and they learn a skill. They are empowered and become role models in their own community and contribute to the local economy.

Shuttle Knit is located in the CEART building in Wicklow, which is owned by Wicklow Travellers Group. The location is very much part of the community and thus feels like a “safe space” for Travellers, where everyone is welcome.

After this visit, the participants had an opportunity to take a walk in the picturesque valley of Glendalough, to visit the lake – all while discussing what the other ERGO members could learn from Pavee Point and the social enterprise projects, how they deal with similar challenges and how they could get replicate this model of work in their countries.

The next day the group visited several halting sites and residence points of Travellers in Dublin: Avila Park Finglas, Cara Park Coolock and St Joesph’s Halting Site Dunsink. Although some sites offer decent residential conditions, even they lack facilities for children to play, community work and further development for the young families.

However, the group also had a chance to see the sites with extremely bad living conditions, where according to the residents the Council is deliberately slow in taking any actions to improve these conditions.

In the afternoon the participants met in the office of Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre to learn more about the programmes and activities they run. Over the past thirty years, Pavee Point has an established track record in innovative and ground-breaking work using a collective community development approach to addressing Traveller & Roma issues and promoting Traveller & Roma rights.

Their programmes include Roma Civil Monitor, Education, Accommodation programme, Drug and Alcohol Programme, Ethnic Data Collection, Roma Project, Violence Against Women and finally Health project, including a special programme on Traveller Men – something which is an acute problem in many countries, but at the same time rarely included as a priority.

Our participants from the Czech Republic and Bulgaria and ERGO Secretariat members from Romania and Lithuania shared insights about the similarities in the situation in their countries regarding the health, evictions, general poverty and other pressing issues.

On the 27^th everyone left for their respective countries, excited, and inspired. The exchange visit proved to be a success with our member organizations – some of them described it as one of the best they ever had! And the credit for this goes to Pavee Point for being amazing hosts and inspiration in their work for all of us.

ERGO plans to organize similar visits to other members in the next years. This type of event is very important for our work to learn about the problems faced by Roma in different countries and to learn how local organizations are trying to find solutions to these problems.

Grassroots Advocacy Academy for multipliers

ERGO Network’s Grassroots Academy for multipliers implemented in the Czech Republic: Equipping multipliers with competencies to implement advocacy trainings

In August this year, about twenty Roma advocates from different European countries gathered in Tepla, a Czech village close to Usti and Labem. For five days, they joined ERGO Network to share and explore different methods of grassroots advocacy and community organizing. We explored ways for grassroots activists who want to advocate for combatting antigypsyism, empowering Roma and promoting social inclusion. We discovered that finding new partnerships and new approaches is proving to be effective. The participants, mostly experienced multipliers on the national level, shared knowledge and experiences with advocacy in difficult environments.

After we got to know each other better and created an open and engaging learning space, inspiring stories were told by our colleagues from Zero Discrimination Association (Turkey), Integro Association (Bulgaria) and Nevo Parudimos (Romania) about certain forms of mobilization and leadership. They triggered debates about gender and power relations and on building relationships with national and local authorities. They also provided us with examples on how local advocates participate in budget planning on the local level and in community-led local development.

Participants agreed that the traditional ways of advocacy seem less and less effective, particularly in countries with far-right governments and a high level of populism in politics.

Romani activist Monika Mihalickova from the Czech organization Romea gave the participants a short training social media fundraising. Miroslav Klempar shared the experiences from Awen Amenca, a movement that fights for quality and non-segregated education for Roma children, based on the value of Roma parents’ participation.

Our Macedonian partners, Fikrija and Denis Selmani triggered the attention of the participants with their successful involvement in mobilization of Roma university students and the Citizens’ Initiative “AVAJA” and its campaign “We Vote, We Decide”. We also met with Steve Hughes, who has 20 years of experience working as a community, union, and political organizer in both the United States and Europe.

Finally, the group had the pleasure to visit Romano Jasnica, a local Roma organization in Trmice founded in 1998 that focuses on providing social services, implementing educational, leisure and cultural activities for children, youth and adults at risk of social exclusion or socially excluded people. The organization connects work on social inclusion with creating employment opportunities, supporting young entrepreneurs, but also engaging Roma in the local politics. Already for the second term, there are two Romani members in the local council.

The participants appreciated the learning experience and emphasized the importance of different participatory methods that ERGO Network used to engage them as much as possible in diverse roles and capacities. With those methods and national follow up trainings in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary we will reach out to more Romani grassroots activists and organizers and make their voice heard also in the national and European policies.

The activity received generous financial support from the International Visegrad Fund and from the European Commission’s EaSI programme.

Exchange visit to Nevo Parudimos

Exchange visit to Nevo Parudimos

From 5 to 9 June 2019 ERGO Network visited Nevo Parudimos in their town of Resita in Romania, along with members from all over Europe to learn about the invaluable work Nevo Parudimos is doing in their country for their local Roma communities. Among the fellow member organizations who attended were staff from Pavee Point in Ireland, FAGIC from Spain, and RomanoNet and Life Together from the Czech Republic.

Once there everyone visited Nevo’s office where Daniel Grebeldinger presented the different projects they are involved in.

This includes youth work, social work, rural development policy and many volunteering projects. Nevo Parudimos is currently hosting 18 international volunteers and works with many local volunteers who support local schools, kindergartens, elderly homes and more. Another focus of the organization is on building local partnerships that benefit Roma communities, the municipality as a whole and the organization.

The participants also had the opportunity to drive though Resita visiting local Roma communities and hearing more about their specific issues and the work that Nevo Parudimos is doing to support them. The day closed with discussing what the other ERGO members could learn from Nevo Parudimos, how they deal with similar challenges and how they could get involved in Nevo’s projects.

The next day the group visited Dognacea, a village in the surrounding mountains that are governed by probably the only Roma woman mayor in the country, Elena Moise. Everyone was greeted with open arms when entering her office, she was so welcoming and willing to answer any questions we had. Elena Moise was previously a local school teacher

and for the last 12 years has taken the position of mayor. After our conversations with her, it is safe to say she is an amazing and inspiring woman and her work is has changed the lives of many people in her village. Especially for the children in the schools, she is a role model who tells them to be proud of themselves. She said that whenever she feels down she goes to visit the local school to speak with the children to cheer up. Her message to us was that it is important to take up roles such as hers in order to do good for our communities, not to be scared of anyone and to be proud of what we do.

On the last evening, we all participated in a networking dinner to meet with Neo Parudimos’ partners, to make contacts and build relations between people working for the same cause. We met with Nadia Potoceanu, the president of Fundatia Activity for Sustainable Development, Lidia Rosianu, the head of the social department of the Municipality of Resita, Cristrian Chioncel, the Vice Dean of Eftimie Murgu University of Resita and Adrian Constantin, director of the Roma Radio Broadcast in Radio Resita.

Everyone left on the morning of the 9^th to their respective countries. The exchange visit proved to be a success with our member organizations, and ERGO plans to organize similar visits to other members in the next years. This type of event is very important for our work to learn about the problems faced by Roma in different countries and to learn how local organizations are trying to find solutions to these problems.

Grassroots Advocacy Academy for multipliers

ERGO Network Grassroots Advocacy Academy for multipliers

23-28 August 2019, Rehlovice (Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic)

Traditional ways of advocacy seem less and less effective, particularly when working in countries with far right governments and a high level of populism in politics. If grassroots activists want to advocate for combatting antigypsyism, empowering Roma and promoting social inclusion, they have to find new partnerships and new approaches to be effective.

In our Grassroots Advocacy Academy for multipliers, we want to share experiences with advocacy in difficult environments, build capacity for effective advocacy in our membership and support multipliers in organising national or local advocacy trainings for Roma activists.

We invite you to an interactive 5-day programme in a nice environment in Czech Republic to share experiences, learn from each other and together build more capacity to advocate effectively for Roma empowerment.

Objectives:

Explore and analyze different methods, ways and approaches of grassroots advocacy and community organizing
Share knowledge and experiences between ERGO Network members
Equip multipliers with knowledge of EU-driven Roma related policies that can support local advocacy
Equip multipliers with competencies and guiding principles to implement national or local advocacy trainings for Roma activists

Profile of participants:

Staff members or volunteers of (pro-)Roma civil society organisations OR
Staff members or volunteers of human rights organisations or training institutes
Experience in advocacy (and ideally also in capacity-building for advocacy)
Knowledge of Roma issues
Able to communicate in English

Conditions

The participation in the Academy is free thanks to a grant of the International Visegrad Fund and the European Commission’s EaSI programme. ERGO Network will cover the travel and accommodation costs.

We have 20 places. In case more people would like to participate, we will select based on motivation and geographical balance.

The Academy will take place from 23-28 August 2019 (including arrival and departure date)

in Rehlovice close to Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic at: https://penzion-u-svate-barbory.hotel.cz/

Transfer from Prague will be organized.

If you are interested to participate, please register here by 13 June 2019.

Download the call for the ERGO Network Grassroots Academy.

Roma inclusion through local partnerships

On 3 December 2018, ERGO Network concluded the first year of its 4-year work programme RIISE (Roma Included in Social Europe) with a panel debate discussing how Roma inclusion can be fostered through meaningful local partnerships.

Emphasising the importance of Roma participation in all stages of decision-making, from the local to the European level, is one of the founding principles of ERGO Network, and many of our activities focus on building trust and partnerships between Roma communities and institutions.

During the panel debate, the speakers highlighted several angles, good examples and pitfalls of partnerships on local level.

The event was opened by introductory remarks from Romeo Franz, Member of the European Parliament for the Greens/EFA and Andor Urmos, Policy Analyst, Directorate General for Regional Policy, European Commission.

It was followed by a panel moderated by former ERGO Network director Ruus Dijksterhuis, who discussed with Dominique Be (DG Employment), Maaike Buyst (Eurocities), Dijana Pavlovic (Upre Roma Italy), Valeriu Capraru (National Federation of Local Action Groups Romania), Tobias Mayr (Congress of local and regional authorities of the Council of Europe) and Andrey Ivanov, Fundamental Rights Agency.

Dijana Pavlovic opened the panel by describing the local reality in Italy, where the level of antigypsyism also in local authorities is extreme. Building partnerships is difficult in a climate where Romani people always have to fear to lose their home during regular evictions.

Dominique Be presented the ROMACT programme, a joint initiative between the European Commission and the Council of Europe that seeks to assist mayors and municipal authorities to work together with local Roma communities to develop policies and public services that are inclusive of all, including Roma. Maaike Buyst spoke about several good practice examples of municipalities in Eurocities Roma inclusion working group, for example Ghent or Goteburg, including Roma mediators, Roma councils and other initiatives. Tobias Mayr presented the Declaration against anti-Gypsyism of the European Alliance of Cities and Regions for the Inclusion of Roma and Travellers.

Valeriu Capraru spoke about opportunities and challenges for Roma inclusion through Local Action Groups in the CLLD process. Andrey Ivanov, Head of Sector Roma and Migrant Integration, Technical Assistance & Capacity Building, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights: presented the new report of the Local engagement for Roma inclusion” (“LERI”) project.

It became clear that two issues are important: Partnerships need to be backed by proper funding and capacity-building of both Roma civil society and local authorities, and antigypsyism need to be tackled on all levels in order to ensure trust of Roma towards institutions.

The conference was closed by ERGO board member Adriatik Hasantari together with Szabolcs Schmidt, Head of Unit Non-discrimination and Roma coordination European Commission, DG Justice, and Marie-Anne Paraskevas, Senior Policy Expert, Social Affairs & Inclusion, European Commission, DG Employment.

After the debate, the participants were invited to celebrate the ten years anniversary of ERGO Network together with ERGO staff and members, going together through the history of ERGO empowering the Roma grassroots and bridging Roma realities with EU policy-making.