Breaking out - A new OSCE-EU project is seeking to multiply solutions for Roma integration
The Konik refugee camp on the outskirts of Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, is home to more than 2,000 Roma who fled Kosovo after the conflict in 1999. Some, like Redzep Beganaj and his family, first found safe haven in Germany before they were slated for repatriation. Redzep was raised and went to school in Germany, and when he came to Konik, he found himself doubly excluded: by many Montenegrins because he was Roma and by the Roma because he spoke mainly German. Luckily, he had his music. He loved rap and began writing songs about life in the ghetto. He teamed up with another young Roma musician, also from Germany, who was into hip hop and together they formed a band, which they named Boyz in da Hood after the 1991 American cult movie depicting life in poor South Los Angeles, California.
The Boyz in da Hood made a few recordings and began to attract some young boys to dance and sing with them. They got funding from a German NGO, HELP, to do workshops and dancing lessons in the camp. A girl’s group was also started, attended by girls up to 15 years old, in itself a small miracle in a context where forced marriage at a very early age is still a common practice.
These dancing lessons have initiated something that was never thought possible in Konik: girls from the Roma camp and girls from the neighbouring non-Roma settlement Vrela Ribnicka are attending the classes together. Communication between members of the two communities was previously non-existent; at best they ignored each other. Now parents are taking turns driving the girls home after their dancing classes.
This story is all the more remarkable as it has unfolded at a time when the prospects for Roma inclusion are not looking good. More than halfway through the Decade for Roma Inclusion (2005-2015), many of the programmes that were adopted by OSCE participating States and the European Union have not shown the desired results.
This realization has motivated an ambitious €3.3 million joint OSCE-EU regional project for the Western Balkans launched in July this year, called Best Practices for Roma Integration (BPRI). Based on the premise that innovative solutions for Roma integration do exist in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo , the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, the project’s goal is to identify them and to promote their replication. Funded by the EU (90 per cent) and the OSCE (10 per cent), it is implemented by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which can capitalize on the experience and contacts of the OSCE’s long-standing field operations in each of these countries.
The OSCE Mission to Serbia, for instance, has for the past four years assisted its host country in engaging health mediators to help Roma overcome barriers in accessing healthcare services. Under the BPRI project, a similar initiative has been launched in Croatia. Two young Roma women are working within the Medjimurje County Hospital to assist members of the Roma community in obtaining personal documentation and health insurance, refer them to medical and social services and provide information on health issues.
Education is another field in which the OSCE field missions have gathered experience, for instance with supporting pedagogical assistants in Serbia and in Kosovo. A major problem, which has no easy solutions, is discrimination in schools. Bullying is one of the main reasons why young Roma children quit attending classes. Shortly before the new school year started this autumn, 26 primary school teachers from schools with many Roma pupils met in Tirana, Albania, under the BPRI project for a training course on different methods for combating discrimination. The trainer, Ruth Friedman, emphasized the idea that under their different exteriors all people represent a common humanity. An important topic was how to deal with children’s parents, who very often are the ones conveying discriminatory sentiments to their children.
The OSCE Mission to Serbia, for instance, has for the past four years assisted its host country in engaging health mediators to help Roma overcome barriers in accessing healthcare services.
Unresolved settlements issues are often a major obstacle to Roma inclusion. In most jurisdictions in the Western Balkan region, having a legal residence is a prerequisite for accessing civil registration, education and other public services. Experts and representatives of over 20 municipalities taking part in the BPRI project gathered in Zagreb, Croatia, on 12 and 13 September for a regional roundtable meeting on legislation for settlement legalization, social housing policies, housing development and settlement improvement. The participants discussed how municipalities could help Roma overcome obstacles to legalization, for instance by reclassifying land, lowering application fees, introducing Roma municipal co-ordinators, donating land or investing in infrastructure improvement. They visited the nearby city of Sisak, where the previously informal settlement of Capraske poljane, housing 150 Roma families, has successfully been formalized after the city acted, first to acquire the land from the Croatian forest company, and later to reclassify it from public to residential land. As a result, the city has been able to provide water, electricity and garbage collection.
Sometimes a settlement is so run down it cannot be improved. In such cases, it is important that Roma have access to social housing. One of the first events held under the BPRI project was a roundtable discussion in Podgorica on Montenegro’s current development of a law on social housing. The meeting was given a special sense of urgency by a fire that broke out in the Konik camp just days before the meeting. The fire burned most of the shacks in the camp and the population had to take shelter in tents. (The Montenegro Ministry of Labour and Social Policy has now bought containers for temporary stay, for more than €1 million.) A key topic of discussion was the importance of including a mention of Roma in the draft legislation as a vulnerable group likely to require housing.
An even more basic requirement than a legal domicile for accessing public services is the possession of personal registration documents, something that many Roma are lacking. Personal documentation is the topic of two research projects by Roma researchers that are being funded under the BPRI project. One is a survey of some 150 young people between 14 and 30 years of age in the community of Veliki Rit in Novi Sad, Serbia. The other is looking at Roma communities in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to determine the extent of their access to documentation, their awareness of the necessity of the same and the effectiveness of schemes to assist persons that are not registered.
For many of the Roma originally from Kosovo and now living in the Konik camp, the lack of registration documents is a major impediment to starting a new life in Montenegro. The OSCE Mission to Montenegro, together with the UNHCR and Montenegrin authorities, has on several occasions this year organized bus trips for displaced persons to Kosovo to obtain the documents they need to regulate their legal stay, most recently on 20 June. The Montenegrin authorities are allowing displaced persons to apply until the end of 2012 for the status of a foreigner with permanent or temporary residence.
The dancing groups in Konik are still in full swing, and there are plans for a performance on Human Rights Day in December. They have been recognized under the BPRI project as a best practice for Roma inclusion. Supporting these children is important, not least because for the short time they are dancing, the problems that beset them can fade away and make room for living the kind of freedom the BPRI project is ultimately aiming to achieve for all Roma: the freedom to pursue a goal, under conditions that give them a fair chance, to excel at something they love to do, as full members of their societies.
* All references to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population, in this text should be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244.