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Roma Routes Final Conference, Heidelberg, Germany 2012The Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma hosted the final conference of the Roma Routes project on the 15th March 2012. Delegates were welcomed to the day by Romani Rose, Chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma.
The EU funded Roma Routes project worked with five partners across Europe to celebrate and promote Roma culture and heritage. The conference was well attended and provided delegates with a chance to hear from the project participants about the exciting activities that have happened over the last 2 years. These ranged from Roma artist performances, films and exhibitions, and Roma culture presented at national events for example the Epsom Derby in the UK. In Romania research was carried out into the local Roma population and a successful summer camp with young people helped to break down barriers between Roma and non Roma.
The first key note
speaker, Zoni Weisz, shared with us his experiences as a Sinti in the
Netherlands and how this vital part of his identity has been recognised
and celebrated.
Click here to downlaod the transcript of Zoni Weiss' presentation.
Viv Golding, the second keynote speaker, used storytelling to challenge the way we represent minorities in cultural representations.
Click here to download the transcript of Viv Golding's presentation.
Project Partner Updates: Cluj 2011
GreeceRoma day 8th April 2011 - Roma at the museum
This event aimed to introduce the project to the media and local people to the museum. The topic of the day was 'Gypsies at the Byzantine Museum'. The day included a variety of speakers including a clarinettist who teaches in the local university. The day finished with a roundtable discussion of the problems facing Roma today and included lawyers and representatives from the Dosta campaign. The event attracted an audience of 150 people. The museum had hoped for more people to attend but feel that the Friday morning timing may not have been best. They had a good mix of Roma and non Roma attend the event. Jiannis explained that this event also provided a very good opportunity for staff at the museum to mix with Roma and to understand the museum's ambitions for its collaborative work with this community.
Summer programme of events
The events that followed Roma day formed a small festival of different activities at the museum, for example, film showings, artists and exhibitions.
These included:
- Exhibition by young Roma photographers
- Exhibition and film from Crete Roma
- Maria Papathaou - famous aesthetic artist in Museum
- A series of movies in Roma and Greek
- Documentaries
- Concert in the museum yard - mixed chorus
- Bazaar of books
- Roma family fairytale event.
There was also an evening discussion, 240 people attended at the museum. They had hoped that more people would attend but as the event was at the museum, in the city centre, there was a difficulty due to all the political protests being held at this time.
The Byzantine Museums worked hard to produce very good publicity for the events. Press, media, newspapers, social media, and 3 minutes on national TV were all arranged for the programme of events. They found that many people were writing about their events on blogs and that this attracted both positive comments and negative comments from nationalists.
Jiannis added that he enjoyed the film events the most as these provide a chance for discussion, debate and to open up people's minds. He believes that it is important that there is a museum that is interested in Roma issues. Jiannis hopes that next time they might be able to publish documents showing how Roma have always been part of Greek history from the Byzantine period.
Germany
Germany's programme of events ran from March - August 2011. All the events were held at the centre in Heidleburg.
The first event was with the artist and speaker Junghaus. She is a speaker on Roma culture and aims to show another side to Roma other than the stereotypes. Originally from Hungary she works with Roma artists and culture to show a more academic side of Roma. This had a wide audience appeal due to the international recognition of the speaker.
The second event included a lecture of fairytales. Adrianna has a Roma colleague who writes fairytales. The evening included these newly written fairytales and traditional Roma fairytales. This was followed by a led discussion highlighting the elements of history and the moral of the fairytale. A series of films, about the current situation for Roma in Hungary were shown at the centre. These show people being attacked and their houses being burned. The film was subtitled. This event led to a very heated and worthwhile discussion.
Another film, shown at the centre, 'Kosovo nowhere' is about a displaced German family in Kosovo. These films were good for students and young people and these showings helped the centre to widen people's awareness on the current difficulties facing Roma today.
A successful concert with Ida Kelarova, a Roma jazz artist who is German and Czech was held at the centre.
A photographic exhibition by Chad Evans Wyatt called 'Roma Rising' was shown at the museum which seeks to break down the stereotypes of Roma.
Ralf highlighted that it is possible to borrow some of these films or download them online together with subtitles as the creator's aim was for the film to reach as wide an audience as possible.
The last event, the Music Ensemble of Benares, held at the centre was extremely popular. Publicity included downloadable screen savers and information on the website.
The trip to Auschwitz was held in August. This involves taking 30 young people, by bus, to visit the site and meet with Roma holocaust survivors. They also speak to people who live in the area. This is the centre's third year of providing this trip. The Centre sees an extremely positive reaction from the young people and as a result these young people are now becoming regular visitors to the centre. The centre gathers feedback from the young people, about the event, two weeks after the trip. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
Slovenia
Ralf showed us the Romano Chon festival brochure. The festival started earlier this year on the 24th March 2011. It is growing bigger and bigger despite little money. It has now spread to 7 Slovenia cities. These are listed on the front of the programme.
The festival receives some financing from the Ministry of Culture and the Roma Routes funding has helped to produce the events in Ljubljana. Three different organisations, an NGO from Maribor, which is the organisation that Jana works for, the Slovenia Ethnographic Museum and the Roma Academic Club produce the festival. However Janja is the most active organiser. This year they have also entered into partnership with an organisation called 'Umbrella' which is proving to be very successful.
The festival aims to bring Roma and non Roma together. Some of its many events included:
- photography exhibitions created by London, Hungary and Roma photographers
- Roma artists
- Exhibition by Croatian artist and activist
- Music and concerts which provides the biggest budget issue but does attract a lot of people
- Malalanga music group which is three children 14, 16 and 10 (they have subsequently been invited to Parliament to play)
- Speakers - very well known Slovenian scientists, historians and researchers
- Children's workshops
The whole festival is free. The Ministry of Culture does provide some finance but the future of the festival is very uncertain. The festival is the only one to focus on Roma people. There is likely to be a change of government and as the political situation is unknown no funding has yet been allocated to the festival for next year so it is becoming extremely difficult to plan next year's festival or book artists. It is held in April when the weather is good and there is no competition from other festivals being held at the same time.
The afternoon panel discussion provided a chance for experts and audience members to discuss the presentation of Roma culture and identity and the prospects for future projects in this area.
The day was perfectly concluded by a concert performance by Duo Stockhausen who fuse guitar and trumpet in energetic but often poignant duets.
UK
Derby on 4th June 2011
Surrey Heritage and members of the local Gypsy and Traveller community organised the display of traditional Gypsy wagons, modern trailers, history displays and children's activities. Surrey County Council Chairman Lavinia Sealy opened the stage expressing the importance of such events and their role in 'breaking down barriers between communities'.
The day was held at the famous race track on Epsom Downs, Surrey.
The event included:
- Surrey Heritage Gypsy Display promoting the culture and longstanding history of Gypsies and Travellers at the Derby.
- Kerieva gave a modern electronic interpretation of songs in the Romani language.
- The Romany Diamonds, a family of performers spanning three generations, who brought a traditional flavour to the day with their fast exciting Gypsy music.
- Cristofe Sors, born in France, played a set of Gypsy guitar
'Travellers Got Talent' South East heats provided entertainment to the crowds for the rest of the afternoon.
Celebrating Gypsy Life, Bourne Hall
This free family event on 25th June 2011 was held at Bourne Hall as part of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history month.
The day included:
- an opportunity for visitors to talk to Gypsies families from Surrey
- traditional Vardos (Gypsy wagons)
- Music from Romany Diamonds and Christofe Sors
- Music workshops for young people
- Traditional Gypsy food cooked over a campfire.
- Free recipe sheets were handed out with the food inviting people to experiment at home.
- An exhibition of well known photos by the late Tony Boxhall, taken of Gypsies travelling in Surrey in the 1960s.
- There were displays on how to trace Gypsy, Roma and Traveller ancestry
- A tree with healing recipes in the branches
- A photo exhibition which was very popular with people trying to identify family members.
- Family activities - making paper hats, colouring pages, making tissue paper roses and model gypsy wagons.
- Miriam Wakerley, local author of 'Gypsies Stop Here' signed copies of her new book
- Surrey Police had a stall offering advice.
The day attracted an audience of about 250 people and as the days is becoming a regular event people are coming back but bringing new people with them.
Related activities not part of Roma Routes
Travellers Got Talent
This year there were 5 national heats with the final being held in London at the Royal Festival Hall. The competition brings different types of Gypsies and Roma together as well as attracting a non- Roma audience. Parts of the competition will be on Sky television in November in a programme called 'A Gypsy Life for me'.
Ann also attended an event at the large 02 centre in London called 'GRUBB'. They are a young group who use drama and hip hop and urban music to educate people about Gypsies and Roma.
Romania
Livia presented the results of the research study. She will send round an English translation of the study resume.
A few notable outcomes from the study include:
- traditional jobs have disappeared in Marmures.
- music groups are now influenced more by modern music
- only 22% of Roma know about the media that is written for/by them
- in order to integrate the Roma need media in their own languages
- the Roma community have started to become part of the Romanian population by denying some of their traditions
- some of these oral stories and traditions have gone
Livia explained that the general policy towards Roma in Romania is one of exclusion. Livia hopes this study will promote the Roma community more. The study findings will be presented to the officer in charge in Maramures. Livia hopes to make a change in Maramures as she feels this is an important community. She hopes that the next year the finances will be redirected to the Roma community so that they can go to school.
Summer camp
This summer the Romanian partner held a second camp funded through a different project. The first part of the camp involved teaching English to Roma Romanian children for six hours a day and then finished by inviting 27 Roma international participants. The participants came from Romania, England, Hungary and Switzerland. The children were aged 10 - 14.