Dear CEU community,
You may have asked yourself what was the noise about on the 7th and 8th of April and what were those brochures in the elevators, the bar and the lobby? So let us briefly inform you about the meaning of the 8th of April. 8th of April is the day of Europe’s biggest minority, the day of 12-15 million people with the same ethnicity around the world. The first unification of the Roma nation was held in 1971 in Orpington, near London, where the first Roma Congress was organized gathering 23 representatives from Czechoslovakia, Finland, Norway, France, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Spain and Yugoslavia. This was the spark of building the unity and the sense of belonging of the nation. The congress established the political term of the notion “Rom” (meaning a man/human being in Romanes), the flag (blue and green with the sixteen-spooked chakra in the middle) and the Romani anthem (Gelem Gelem). The first Romani congress was the milestone of unification and the future of the nation. The next congresses reaffirmed and endorsed the development of this non-territorial nation.
Surprisingly or not, Roma people also belong to the CEU community. Some of them are great friends of yours and some of them you have not met yet. There are 50 young Roma students currently enrolled in the several programs and departments at the CEU. We are coming from Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. In the past few weeks, we have decided to give a symbolic contribution and present ourselves in the best manner in front of the CEU community. The Roma Access Programs, with the great assistance of the Human RightS Initiative (HRSI), have organized a Roma Week, starting from the 4th of April until the 12thApril.
So, what did we prepare for you? Firstly, we began with the “Teaser campaign” on April 1st, stressing the importance of our ethnicity across Europe. The campaign finished on the 8th of April with the greeting to all Romani people in the world. In the following days, we organized a symbolic info table, presenting materials that target us as an important group in the society. The evening of the 4th of April was adorned by magnificent Forum Theatre Performance on Romani youth rights, by CARE Serbia and Novi Sad Humanitarian Centre. In the following days, you might have noticed a donating box in the dorm`s lobby, where we collected donations for the Romani community in Bicske. We would like to thank all of you who contributed to the cause. In the same time, while doing all mentioned activities, we were preparing ourselves for the flash mob that was planned to take place on the 8th of April, in front of St. Stefan Basilica.
The morning of April 8th started with the traditional march and casting of the flowers into Danube, as a way of unification with all Roma across the world. Together with this, we also commemorated victims of the Holocaust. The emotional speeches of Ágnes Daróczi and Cristina Marian made us recall all the historical injustices that our people had to go through in the last few decades. The day was crowned with the well-prepared flash mob and with the great effort of the current and former Roma Access Programs` students. I bet you thought that the last sentence was in the style of “it was all folks”. But, I have to “disappoint” you with some more activities that we have organized by now. On April 10th, a student of the Roma English Language Program, Erzsébet Tonté, had her exhibition on the 1st floor at Nádor 9 building. The exhibition of illustrations “Romani in watercolors”, presented her effort in painting the books for Romani pupils. For the last day of our Romani week, we have prepared a screening of the “People Uncounted” movie in the CEU Auditorium. It is an extremely moving documentary about the Holocaust survivors, which leaves no one indifferent.
Dear CEU community, we really hope that our activities have enriched your knowledge about the Romani people. With the catchword “We are here”, we wanted to raise awareness and continue combating the burden of prejudices, stereotyping and various means of discrimination. We conclude this article with a couple of words that have been highlighted in the last few years:
“We are Roma
We have a flag
Our anthem is Gelem Gelem
We speak Romanes
We celebrate 8th of April
We are citizens,
We are the nation…
… and WE ARE HERE!”
OPRE ROMA!
Text written by:
Marina Vasić, Department of Political Science and
Suad Skenderi, Roma Graduate Preparation Program
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