�You Hold the Key� Campaign Launched

07 February 2006

The National Roma Centre from Kumanovo organized yesterday a session with the press, to mark the launch of Roma Education Campain �You Hold the Key�.

Roma children at school

The campaign includes editors and journalists of several Macedonian media, who will lobby and provide support through their respective media to avoid the use of stereotypes on life and future of Roma in the reporting.

The discussion, dedicated to the manner of reporting of Roma issues, debated whether it was better to reprot the good or bad examples within this ethnic community.

The Roma, faced with a huge number of prejudice in the reporting on their everyday existence, are often used as synonimic to poverty, abuse of welfare, crime, begging in the streets and family violence. Only rarely the reporting on the Roma is affirmative, for example, that there are Roma Ph.D. degree holders, university professors or successful women.

Dragan Nedeljkovic, Director of the Bureau for Development of Education of Communities with the Ministry of Science and Education, emphasized that, in spite of the fact that the Ministry has done a lot to raise the level of education of the Roma, no media has mentioned it in its coverage. He announced the plans to establish a Roma Language Department with the Skopje University�s School of Philology, as well as a special department with the School of Pedagogy.

Mabera Kanberi from the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, criticized the media over the total ommission of the fact that Macedonia receive 1.4 million EUR under the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015, or the fact that 150 Roma students are enrolled in various years of study in the country. She also complained about the use of the official title of the decade, with �Roma Decade� usually substituting the �Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015� in the coverage.

The majority of the participants in the meeting agreed that the situation in the reporting and coverage of Roma problems will improve through employment of Roma journalists, who will report on problems and development in their local communities. One contribution to this plan is under way, with the Macedonian Institute for the Media educating 12 Roma journalists under the Roma Journalists Education Programme.

Slavica Kurcinska from the National Roma Centre announced that the campaign will visit, during the next three months, all Roma familes in Macedonia, to introduce them about the possibilities that the Decade offers in elementary, secondary and higher education. With that goal in mind, the education of field educators who will visit the families will start tomorrow.

Under this Campaign, a documentary film on the education of the Roma will be promoted. Also, another similar meeting is planned with representatives of the central and local government institutions.