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Anastasia Balezdrova

The Roma live in Europe since the 14th century, but still most Europeans do not consider them as their equal fellow citizens. Many Roma now live in extremely difficult conditions, and their participation in public life is very limited. 

Problems with prejudices and stereotypes towards the mas in Greece were discussed at the official launch of the campaign of the Council of Europe called "Dosta". Under the slogan "Reject prejudice, discover the Roma" the campaign aims to inform the public of the 47 countries - members of the Council of Europe about the Roma and to stress that prejudices and their rejection by most people is the fruit of their ignorance.

Shortly before the opening I met Sabiha. She is president of the cultural and educational association of Roma women "Hope" in the village Drosero, Xanthi region. I asked her what prompted her to set up the association.

"I'm just one of those who face the problems of the Roma from the beginning of our lives. As a child you have no access to healthcare and education, you have no toys. Then you reach the age of 13-14 years old. Again, no choice. You get married, when your parents find a husband for you. And then at home you are subjugated to your husband. What I mean is that the problems are transferred from generation to generation. The voice of the woman is never heard. It is as if she doesn’t exist.

The company was founded in order to change some of these things, not to fight against men. Our goal is to unite with them, because men are born by the women. To be equal, to have health care".

The association in Drosero officially exists since 2006, but unofficially it started its activities about three years earlier. Sabiha said that it needed time to prepare its company statute and especially for the women to understand what an association means. "They knew nothing about these things," she says.

"When we already had company statute and an office we began to work with children 3-4 years old through creative activities in which the mothers could also participate. There we also shared our problems, because in the company women could talk more easily with each other. We Roma live with our fathers in law and we never had a separate room of our own.

In 2006 children who attended kindergarten in Drosero were about 45. "We started working with this age, to enable children to love school. We wanted to understand what they didn’t like and what made them not to go to school.

Of course, we knew very well because we went through the same things when we were kids. The reason lies mainly in the language. So we sent in the kindergarten intermediaries translating from Greek into our language romani. This system has proved to be the right one and very productive one and we applied it also to children in primary school.

We were concerned by the fact that 160 children were going to school out of over 2000 in the village. There were children who could not even tell what is it that alienates them from school. Then in the association we organized a study room in which teachers taught lessons to children for two hours before or after school activities. This was necessary because the parents of the children are illiterate and could not help them. This activity also worked out well and the number of children at school increased. Furthermore, we were able to talk with the children themselves about their problems at school, not only with their mothers, as it happened previously.

Then founded the parental council and we continued with the study halls also with the older students. So we achieved that out of the 1000 children enrolled, 800 attended school activities.

According to Sabiha now children are difficult to fit into the buildings and it makes them leave school because the conditions are not good. "All three schools in Drosero are prefabricated buildings, and their yard is common. The people responsible are telling us that everything is fine, but the children do not like it and do not attend school.

In its first steps the association had serious problems created by the men who have reacted negatively to the involvement of their wives in it. "They said "what do women do" or "what can women change". They are still doing it now, but not as fiercely as the in the beginning".

Nevertheless, female participation is very high. They trust each other and feel more powerful in solving important problems of their daily lives.

One of the main prejudices against Roma is that they benefit from funded programs and try to live without working. Particularly interesting and valuable is Sabiha’s view point on how and whether the money allocated by Europe for Roma ever reach them.

"Everything that is done for the Roma by the state or by the European authorities is nice. I am grateful to the organizers, that once again they drew attention to the Roma. What matters, however, is that these things have a result for us.

It would be very good if the programs were conducted to their end, without making the lives of the Roma more difficult. I'll give you one example. Recently a program was implemented to finance small businesses for the Roma. Most Roma joined and now they owe money for social security to the security fund of the free entrepreneurs without having received money from the funding. Some rented shops, they bought goods but did not receive allocations. Only a few managed to receive the first installment of € 7,000, but they still owe them the remaining two.

Now they are telling them that the amounts are "frozen" and that is killing the people. That was the situation also with the "Gypsy loans". Although they were approved, the money for funding were again "frozen". We, however, were never sent a document showing that we are entitled to receive the already approved amounts or that the program is suspended and will no longer continue. Who gets this money? They only tell the Roma that money is "frozen" until they get tired of asking and stop dealing with it".

According to Sabiha people who really deal with the problems of the Roma are very few. "Most of us do not know how to ask for what belongs to them. When a person is illiterate he does not know where to go and what to say. Thus many companies are placed in a very difficult situation and do not know what to respond to people. The reasons for this are many. Sometimes they are political, other times someone is "acting smart" or just racist "come on now, are we really going to deal with the Roma".

It's very tiring. It would be better if Europe made no programs for Roma, because the money does not go to them. Don’t let the other take it.

And then they talk about transparency. Why don’t they apply it first to themselves? They tell Europe, that the program goes well, because all documentation is signed, but the money does not go as intended.

Let’s not talk about the cases when the competent official of a ministry finds a Roma person, whom he gives some money to be the "face" of the whole story. Then begin also "civil wars" between us. We fight between the Roma so that the others can be better, yet once again. I think those Roma who have very few are suckers because they do not realize how much they harm their own people this way. I'm sure that if they knew they would not do it.

And then people say "Roma are like this". They can not get to an understanding between each other and therefore we "froze the program.

After the opening of the campaign by the Vice-minister of education Fofi Gennimata and the Special Representative of the Council of Europe for the Roma Jeroen Schokkenbroek threr was hosted a round table in which participated university teachers. Most of them work for years on the programs aiming at attracting Roma children at the schools. They shared the problems they face and stressed that it is very important that children learn in schools with other peers, and not in the ghetto neighborhood schools.

The speeches of several representatives of Roma organizations in which they presented the real and urgent problems of the Roma such as the lack of basic things like running water, electricity and paved streets in their neighborhoods brought in the necessary dose of realism in the otherwise splendid evening in the building of the "Mihalis Kakogiannis" foundation.

Later, the music and colorful dances cheered up the otherwise rather heavy atmosphere in the hall.

Very interesting seemed to me the title of the campaign. I asked quite a lot of Roma what that meant in their language and they told me that there is no such word.

"I asked the organizers and they recognized that the word is Serbian. I had not realized what it was. When I was told that the campaign is called so I thought this is a name that they had given to the program. I did not know the word is presented as Roma".

Nevertheless, what is important in this case is for the prejudices and stereotypes against Roma to be rejected. And yet "enough" in Roma language is "ekhol".