local development – 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.

ERGO meets EC desk officers

ERGO members meet European Commission desk officers

On 10 September 2020, the European Roma Grassroots Organisations (ERGO) Network facilitated an online exchange meeting between its national members in 5 key countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia) and their counterparts in the country desks of DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) and DG Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO).

The meeting served as a space to update each other on the preparation of National Roma Integration Strategies in the specific countries, as well as on Roma participation in the process of designing measures to target Roma under the European Funds. The participants also discussed the possibility to introduce Roma indicators in the funds, connecting them better with the Roma strategies. Finally, in view of the upcoming European Semester Country Reports 2021, the European Commission urged ERGO Network members to feed Roma realities and proposals, in particular with a view to the pandemic and recovery.

ERGO Network director Gabriela Hrabanova pointed out that the exchange was very timely, as we are now living a crucial moment where dots need to be connected to ensure that Roma rights and inclusion are delivered on. She stressed the importance of having a Roma-specific indicator, to ensure that the impact of measures and funds on Roma communities can be measured, and lessons learned. Investment is also needed in civil society, to build capacity and strong coalitions in order to effectively put forward the voice of the Roma. She reminded that ERGO Network is also actively monitoring the European Semester and wishes to see better alignment between these processes and the EU Roma Strategic Framework.

ERGO Network members expressed their concerns regarding the situation in their countries. For Bulgaria, Liliya Makaveeva and Kadrin Hasanov from Integro Association, stressed that civil society organisations were not involved in the consultation processes for the elaboration of the post-2020 National Roma Integration Strategy. The situation was better when it came to the working groups for most Operational Programmes, where civil society is present and can put forward proposals – even if those are not always taken into account. It is equally important to ensure that the Roma feature prominently in the upcoming Country Reports 2021.

In Czech Republic, Michal Miko from RomanoNet, Jelena Silajdžić from Slovo 21, and Nikola Taragoš from Romodrom agreed that they felt that their country was on the right path to have a good Strategy with positive measures, although there is always room for improvement. For the first time, Roma NGOs and the Roma Council are able to negotiate with different ministries to achieve good quality Operational Programmes, and hopefully deliver real inclusion for the Roma in the Czech Republic.

For Hungary, András Nun from Autonómia Foundation and Melinda Kassai from Butterfly Development informed that, unfortunately, civil society is not being involved in any process, and drafts have not been shared. The state of democracy in Hungary is dire, and civil society is systematically disempowered and kept out. There are no open calls, funding is allocated behind closed doors, without competition, participation, or transparency. A few well connected actors receive all the opportunities.

For Romania, Florin Botonogu from the Policy Center for Roma and Minorities and Daniel Grebeldinger from Nevo Parudimos indicated that the next national Strategy looks like a good document on paper, and – very importantly – has budgetary allocations attached. Civil society has been very involved in the drafting process, this was the closest cooperation in the history of the national Strategy. Both organisations have closely followed both this process, as well as the consultations around EU funds, which was however a much poorer engagement process. It was very difficult to ensure the delivery of Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) during the pandemic, as .community participation was not feasible in online meetings.

For Slovakia, Zuzana Havírová from the Roma Advocacy and Research Center shared that the country now had a new Head of the Plenipotentiary Officer for Roma Communities, which means that the process for the preparation of the Strategy was much more open to Roma people and the civil society organisations working with them than previously. This is a very encouraging step, however more can be done to improve participation, ownership, and transparency.

Konstantinos Niafas, from the Romanian desk in DG REGIO, noted the process of regionalisation currently taking place in Romania, which means that some of the EU Funds will be channelled through regional Operational Programmes in the next programming period. While the negotiation processes for the planning of the period 2021-2027 are ongoing, there is a parallel open channel to discuss the recovery and resilience funds, a process which is still being designed. The Commission is hoping to receive the National Recovery Plans from Member States by October – this is a process coordinated by the Secretariat General of the European Commission, together with DG ECFIN. However, he stated, a lot of coordination was needed, with all these processes taking place at the same time, so such exchange meetings are welcome.

Ştefan Păduraru, working in the Romanian desk in DG EMPL, also noted that addressing the needs of disadvantaged communities, including Roma, was an important priority for the European Commission in the ongoing negotiations on the next programming period. As these negotiations are not finalised, however, it would be difficult to comment on specific future interventions. Grassroots organisations such as the ERGO Network members are encouraged to proactively contribute to this process through, for example, the consultation process undertaken by the Romanian authorities on the draft Operational Programmes.

Pavel Tychtl, working for the Czech Republic desk in DG EMPL, highlighted that sensitive, intelligent solutions needed to be found at both EU and national level to collect disaggregated information on Roma without infringing data privacy. This would enable having a concrete and specific indicator, which would allow all parties to evaluate the impact of the measures. It is important to keep in place the explicit, but not exclusive, principle when designing specific Roma targeted measures. Regarding civil society engagement in the Czech Republic, the overall feeling is that there is good cooperation, relevant actors work together. Even where voices are diverse, the message is strengthened. Information from the ground is incredibly appreciated and valuable, and national meetings are also open to civil society actors.

Andor Ürmös, from DG REGIO, stressed that the debate on a Roma-specific indicator was a very important one, as such as indicator would help improve Roma participation in the big Programmes. However, he expressed concern that such an indicator, if used improperly, might lead to segregation, and that social and economic inclusion of the Roma would be seen as a separate side-process.

After the opening plenary, participants split into breakout rooms according to countries, in order to be able to exchange bilaterally more in detail about specific national concerns. Some of these bilateral discussions during the meeting have led to the setting up of more such follow-up meetings, so that the two sides can keep each other involved.

Once participants reconvened once more in the main virtual room, Jamen Gabriela Hrabaňová, ERGO Network Director, ended the meeting by reassuring desk officers that ERGO Network national members and staff stand committed, willing, and able to provide all necessary input and feedback from their work directly at grassroots level, to make sure that the voice of the Roma is being heard.

Drugs, No Thanks

Drugs, No Thanks

ERGO Network’s Croatian member organisation Udruga Roma Zagreb i Zagrebačke županije has been running the drug prevention project “Drugs, No Thanks”every year for the last 15 years. This year it was expanded to other types of addiction, especially gambling and betting, which is especially pronounced in our Roma population.

With this project, the organisation is helping a lot of young Roma to get rid of drug, alcohol, gambling and betting addictions. They encourage them to get (further) education to improve their employability, so that they do not have to go work abroad.

During the project, they also issued a manual with information about different drug addictions that you can find here in Croatian.

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.

Voluntary work with and for Roma communities

Voluntary work with and for Roma communities

Romanian ERGO member Nevo Parudimos Association has more than 5 years of experience in volunteering projects. The organisation has hosted more than 30 volunteers and sent more than 15 volunteers to different European countries.in the last years.

A big part of our work is based on local or international volunteers. Our projects promote volunteering at local level as a tool to promote inclusion. Our project “For a kid smile”, which involved 2500 Roma and non-Roma local volunteers, was a finalist in the Erste Stiftung Roma integration projects award, being considered a good practice in the field.

Currently we are hosting 15 volunteers from across Europe and are searching to recruit five more coming from EU countries, Macedonia and Turkey for our ongoing projects:

Volunteering and Education for Civic Involvement
Volunteering for a smile
V for Volunteering
Yes to volunteering

The main activities of our international volunteers are: non-formal education and prevention of school dropout in schools from poor neighborhoods of Resita; promotion of volunteering and civic involvement; learning foreign languages and promoting interculturality, tolerance and understanding among young people or activities to increase the involvement of young people in decision-making.

You can find more information here.

In November 2018 our association opened the Nevo Parudimos Youth Center, a place that is coordinated together with EVS volunteers. The main goal of the center is the development of social, cultural and artistic activities with and for disadvantaged youth (with a focus on Roma youth) in Resita Citi (80.000 inhabitants). The youth center offers volunteers opportunity for self-development and creates a safe space for EVS volunteers to learn and practice non – formal education methods for their professional development.