Today, on the 8th of April, the world celebrates the International Roma Day – the day of Roma culture, history and national identity. International Renaissance Foundation which is a part of the Open Society Foundations congratulates the Roma national community of Ukraine with its holiday. For the last two decades the Foundation provides support to Roma communities and contributes to the development of civil society in the Roma national minority.
Today, on the 8th of April, the world celebrates the International Roma Day – the day of Roma culture, history and national identity. International Renaissance Foundation which is a part of the Open Society Foundations congratulates the Roma national community of Ukraine with its holiday. For the last two decades the Foundation provides support to Roma communities and contributes to the development of civil society in the Roma national minority.
During the time of our cooperation with the partners who represent Roma people in different regions of Ukraine we have passed together a long way of development and establishment of civic movement in Roma communities.
With the support of the Foundation, Roma books and newspapers were published, creative collectives and the festivals were organized which have already become a tradition, the Sunday schools for studying Roma language and preschool programmes were operated. Together we have worked to overcome the barriers to education, obtaining identification documents and improvement of access to medical services, development of the state policy concerning Roma and supervision of how the state implements its obligations towards Roma national minority.
To date, projects on provision of primary legal aid to the Roma communities of Zakarpattia, Odesa, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv and Cherkasy region have been organized with the support of the Foundation and the network of the Open Society Foundations. In these Centers situated in Roma settlements, people receive assistance in obtaining identification documents and social services, registration of property rights and other legal issues. Since 2014 in Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions the targeted legal and social support to internally displaced Roma is being provided.
In Roma settlements in Uzhhorod, Lutsk, Odesa and Zolotonosha the parent development centers operate, where Roma family may get timely assistance and learn skills of caring about children at early stages of their life. We continue to support endeavours of the organizations to promote and adopt at the national level the model of Roma health mediators which has proven effective in the work with Roma communities and overcoming barriers to medical and social services.
In cooperation with Roma Education Fund we continue to support Roma youth in its desire for education and learning – 106 Roma children from different parts of Ukraine won the contest and received higher education scholarships in 2014-2015.
Joint efforts of coalition of Roma organizations in cooperation with the European Roma Rights Centre (Budapest) and the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights helped to launch the project to monitor implementation of the Strategy for the Protection and Integration of Roma National Minority into Ukrainian Society up to 2020. This initiative aims to strengthen public control over the implementation of the state’s obligations towards Roma people of Ukraine.
Over the years of work, our obvious achievement was to find reliable, talented and proactive partners, leaders of organizations which represent the interests of Roma national minority both at the regional and national levels.
However, there are still a lot of issues that require consolidation of efforts of civil society activists and obviously the government.
Today, on the International Roma Day, which currently is celebrated in important and difficult times for our state when every citizen of Ukraine has to opt out daily for the new, democratic and open Ukraine, we call once again every member of society and the government to prevent discrimination on a national basis.
The situation of Roma minority in the country reflects our common willingness to be truly democratic and reform our society from within.
We congratulate the people of Roma with this holiday! We wish that every day each of you had a chance to say “I am proud to represent the Roma people”!
International Renaissance Foundation
