Roma inclusion

1. Roma inclusion The Roma people have always lived a nomadic type of life. Without any steady income, without “real” brick houses and with a smile on their faces. The majority of people living in Europe find these facts unsettling on an unconscious level because we tend to glorify other values in life like stability, predictability, savings accounts etc. That is why we can’t identify with the Roma minority and we tend not to think about them, see them or know about them. Our whole governing and social system or should i say, our society is on the other hand, made for satisfying the needs of the majority and the few that fall into the cracks of our society are forgotten and looked at as a problem.

2. In most cases the Roma people don’t understand how society works and that’s why they are having problems with authorities. And because of living in poverty, the criminal rate is higher than average because they need to somehow provide the necessities for living. But we should not be quick to jump to assumptions that the criminal rate is high just because they are Roma. Let’s for example ask: How high is the criminal rate between drug addicts or homeless people? The Roma children rarely go to colleges. Their parents need the children to help them salvage the recyclable material and get some money for it. This is the way most Roma work for a living. So, the Roma children finish only an elementary school or intermediate level. Because of their culture, the official language of the country they live in is in fact their second language (Roma language of course, being the first language) and because they don’t finish schools, they are looked at as stupid people. The Roma people also have to live with many stereotypes their whole life that prevent them from getting a good job or benefits that society takes for granted. So, it’s really a vicious cycle that can’t be broken without a serious plan.

3. Decade of Roma Inclusion The Decade of Roma Inclusion (Deshbersh le Romengo Anderyaripnasko in Romani) is an initiative of 12 European countries to improve the socio-economic status and social inclusion of the Romani minority across the region. The initiative was launched in 2005, with the Decade of Roma Inclusion running from 2005 to 2015, and represents the first multinational project in Europe to actively enhance the lives of Roma. The 12 countries taking part in the Decade of Roma Inclusion are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Spain. All of these countries have significant Romani minorities, and the Romani minority has been rather disadvantaged, both economically and socially. Slovenia[1] and the United States[2] maintain observer status. The governments of the above countries have committed to closing the gap in welfare and living conditions between the Roma and non-Roma populations, as well as putting an end to the cycle of poverty and exclusion that many Roma find themselves in. Each of these countries has developed a national Decade Action Plan that specifies goals and indicators in the Decade's priority areas: education, employment, health and housing. The founding international partner organizations of the Decade of Roma Inclusion are the World Bank, the Open Society Institute, the United Nations Development Program, the Council of Europe, the Council of Europe Development Bank, the Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Roma Information Office, the European Roma and Travellers Forum, the European Roma Rights Centre and the Roma Education Fund. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN–HABITAT), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) became partners in the Decade in 2008, and the World Health Organization (WHO) became a partner in 2011. The Roma Education Fund (REF), a central component of the initiative, was established in 2005 with the mission of expanding educational opportunities for Romani communities in Central and Southeastern Europe. REF's goal is to contribute to closing the gap in educational outcomes between Roma and non-Roma through a variety of policies and programs, including desegregation of educational systems. REF receives funds from governments, multilateral organizations and private sources. It finances projects that are proposed and implemented by governments, non-governmental organizations and private organizations. Planning for the Decade is guided by the International Steering Committee (ISC), which is composed of representatives of the participating governments, international partner organizations and Romani organizations. Each year, one of the participating governments holds the Decade’s Presidency. Croatia currently holds the Presidency (July 1, 2012 − June 30, 2013). [edit]References

4. "There has not been much progress in the last ten years,” says Andrey Ivanov, an advisor at the UnitedNations Development Program (UNDP). In spite of an increasing awareness of the dramatic social problems related to the exclusion of the Roma and a willingness to do something about them, governments of the European Union have achieved little in alleviating the plight of Europe's most marginalised ethnic minority.Much more needs to be done to help Europe's approximately 10m Roma effectively, say the authors of a new report by the UNDP, the World Bank and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). They conducted a survey in 84,000 households in 11 countries across the continent. What they found was grim: only 15% of young Roma adults surveyed finish upper-secondary general or vocational education, compared with more than 70% of the majority population living nearby. Less than 30% of Roma surveyed are in paid employment. And about 45% of them live in households lacking at least one of the following: an indoor kitchen, loo, shower or bath, or electricityConditions in Roma settlements on the edges of town and villages rival Africa or India for their deprivation. And most Roma in eastern Europe (where the majority of Europe's Roma live) are now worse off than under communism, which, for all its faults, at least guaranteed work, housing and welfare. It also stamped down on hate crimes that now flare up in regular intervals.We are now seven years into Europe's “Decade of Roma Inclusion”, launched in 2005 at a riverside hotel in Budapest. In order to reduce the gap between Roma and non-Roma, national strategies will need to be more effectively implemented. The authors of the report recommend that policymakers pay more attention to the school participation and school completion of Roma children; the skills and education of Roma jobseekers; the housing needs of the Roma and their health condition. It is also important to focus more on the combat against discrimination and anti-gypsyism and to raise Romas' awareness of their fundamental rights.Scientific data on Roma are scarce, notes Mr Ivanov, which was one of the reasons for the agencies to embark on their survey. The FRA is planning to repeat the survey twice until 2020 in the hope that robust comparable data that will help the EU institutions and member states in measuring progress made and comparing experiences. The report's authors also think that promoting Roma inclusion could help the inclusion of other minorities in Europe. Efforts to solve Europe's biggest social problem could thus have a more general beneficial effect.

5. The expulsion of Roma from Italy and France is bringing Roma issues in from the margins of European studies. Expulsions from Italy in 2006-07 and from France in 2010 turned the Roma into headline news and brought this marginalised community onto the European policy agenda. This higher profile has also been reflected within European studies. Academics dealing with the Roma are pooling their expertise, while those in other areas are turning to the Roma for case studies in subjects such as migration, social inclusion and citizenship. Much of the impetus to build an EU strategy on the Roma came mainly from the European Parliament, and it was a Parliamentary research grant that brought Claire Gordon of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) to the issue in 2009. Her specialisation is the post-communist area, in particular the role of the EU in bringing about change in countries applying for membership. “Up until about two years ago I'd done no work on the Roma, except for noting that they were one of the minorities that the European Commission regularly highlighted as an area that needed attention,” she says. The Parliamentary project involved looking at the situation of Roma citizens in six ‘old' and six ‘new' EU states, with a particular focus on employment, education, health and housing. As well as Gordon, the project involved Will Bartlett, a colleague at LSE's European Institute, and Roberta Benini of the Nomisma Institute of Economic Research in Bologna. It proved to be a fertile field of inquiry. “The Roma represent a really interesting area of study for comparative political science and comparative political economy, not necessarily coming at it because the Roma is your focal point of interest but as a way to get into a lot of other issues,” Gordon says. For example, she and Bartlett have used the Roma issue as a means of examining the Parliament's powers in the wake of the Lisbon treaty. “We looked at attempts by the Parliament to push through a much more active strategy on Roma inclusion, the possibilities for Europeanisation and the intra-institutional relations between the Council [of Ministers], the [European] Commission and the Parliament.” “We concluded that the Commission and the Council retained the upper hand,” she says.

6. Shaping European identity Owen Parker, a research fellow in the University of Warwick's department of politics and international studies, also came to the Roma through studying the EU, in particular how European governance seeks to shape European identity and ideas of citizenship. The French expulsions were his way in. “What was particularly interesting to me was this conflict between France and the EU, the Commission and Commissioner [Viviane] Reding's outspoken statements on the issue and the invocation of EU citizenship in relation to the Roma,” he says. Parker recently received a grant from the Leverhulme Trust, a UK-based research charity, for a two-year project examining the plight of the Roma as a case study in European citizenship, security and identity. “The Roma are a group who have constantly sat at the margins in one way or another,” he says. “I'm interested in considering why, how and where this group is consistently marginalised in an apparently cosmopolitan European political space.” Although still in its early stages, Parker hopes this project will include fieldwork in France and Spain, a country with a more positive record on Roma issues. Meanwhile, Timofey Agarin and Matthew Kott, two academics with a longer engagement with Roma issues, have set up a collaborative research network under the aegis of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies. The idea is to make connections, particularly with researchers new to the area, to break down disciplinary barriers and to build proposals for research projects. “The aim is to formulate research that has a European agenda,” says Kott, who co-ordinates Romani studies at Uppsala University in Sweden. “We are talking about a transnational minority, a quintessentially European minority. They didn't become Romanies until they arrived in Europe, so it should be an issue of interest for Europeans on a broader scale.” Kott, who specialises in 20th-century Baltic history, initially came to the Roma through studying their persecution during the Second World War. He can see why people with a focus on EU politics are now interested in the issue. “If you look at the events of last summer in France, these questions are really testing the boundaries of European integration,” he says.

7. The need for outsiders However, as a historian he sees a continuity with earlier exclusions and the way attempts to exclude Roma groups have been formulated over the centuries. “The need for national states to create outsiders is being transferred to the need of the European Union to unify itself by creating the ‘other'.” Agarin, who is based at the University of Aberdeen, is a social and political scientist with an interest in social exclusion and political decision-making. “Over the past couple of years, I've come to look at the Roma because they are marginalised in the political process as well as in the social fabric of society,” he says. “They are always excluded from participating in what European citizens perceive to be their inalienable right to take part in social and political life.” As well as its research goals, Agarin thinks that the network could have a role building bridges between policy-makers and Roma activists. “There is huge potential for talking to both sides,” he says, “whereas before the expulsions from Italy and France there was no sense of urgency about the matter.”

8. DŽAN PIJI - LET’S GO DRINK DŽAN SE KURI - LET’S MAKE LOVE SARHIJAS - HOW ARE YOU SARTU ŠUŠE JAČA GUNTA – YOU HAVE BEAUTIFUL EYES GUNTA SKININ HELEVA – TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS SKININ MAJA – TAKE OFF YOUR T-SHIRT SARE HIJAŠ ŠUŠI – YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL ČINSA MANDAR GRASTE/HEREN – DO YOU WANT TO BUY MY HORSE/DONKEY? SOKERANA GANA DELANA – WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? DŽAN KELI – LET’S DANCE SOKERANA TAHA – WHAT WILL WE BE DOING TOMORROW? RATI PIJANAJ – WE DRANK YESTERDAY. DIVE KERANA ROMANE RIJEČI – TODAY WE WORK ON ROMA WORDS.