Interview Interview
People give money for the victims from tsunami, but not for Roma children from their neighborhoods
Yvana Enzler, Ambassador of Switzerland in Republic of Albania
In my language, there is an expression which says “Help yourself and God will help you”. Non-Roma people can and should help Roma to improve their situation, but this responsibility lies above all with the Roma people themselves, concludes the ambassador Enzler
Yvana Enzler is the ambassador of Switzerland in Republic of Albania. In 1979 she joined the Swiss diplomatic service and was posted in Berne, Brussels, Rome, Washington and again Berne. From 1998 to 2002 she was Deputy Head of Mission at the Swiss Embassy in Sarajevo and from 2002 to 2007, Head of the Swiss Liaison Office in Pristina. She is a member of the Board of Roma Education Fund (REF) from Budapest too. She feels that her job as an ambassador as well as a member of the Board of REF is rich experience and knowing better and more about different areas from the social life and working. Because of her long lasting presence on the Balkans, she knows the conditions in the Balkan countries very well. Education and increasing the continence of the Roma parents is the main condition for progress among this population, especially the socio-economics conditions.
The education should be every Roma parent’s first priority
Redzep Ali Cupi, Directorate for improvementDIRECT of the languages of the ethnic communities
The Ministry is currently working on two big projects, the highs school in Shuto Orizari, where the Roma population is majority, and the project for introducing Romanology studies on the faculties in the country, says Cupi
Redzep Ali Cupi is the director of directorate for improvement and development of the languages of the ethnic communities. This institution functions inside the Ministry of Education and Science and it takes care of the education of the smaller ethnic communities in a sense of establishing classes in which they can learn on their native language; promotion of interethnic tolerance, multicultural society and cooperation.
I’m not Tsigan, nor Gipsy, I’m Roma!
Portrait: Faik Abdi, first roma member of the Parliament and founder of PCER
I’m regretting that I’ve started working on this issue and didn’t manage to finish it, although this issue doesn’t have end. There are ways and solutions. Many NGO’s are talking about education, but who pay attention on them. I will tell you one Turkish saying: after the Huriet, they opened the gates to the Bosfor and to Dardanelles and heroically shouted: We are not giving the canal! And the Jews from the other side shouted: Who ask you? The situation is the same nowadays.
Faik Abdi is the first Roma in the modern Macedonian history that become a member of the Parliament of Republic of Macedonia in the period from 1991 till 1994, as well as from 1994 to 1998. He is founder and first president of the Party for total emancipation of Roma (PCER). Abdi was participant on the first Roma congress that was held in 1971 in London. He claims that, now, when he looks behind him and make a retrospective of his life and political achievements, the thing that bothers him the most during his 30 year dedication on Roma issue, is that he didn’t had time to finish it. Abdi claims that his party doesn’t have enough power and strength compared with the time when he was president because as he says, there’s no man who can organize the Roma young force. The fact that Roma today in Macedonia are Roma and not Tsigani and Gypsies is his biggest achievement in his carrier as well as his efforts for human rights of the Roma people. He is sorry the most that his associates, colleagues and followers have forgotten him and many years now, no one visited him in his home in the Skopje’s Roma municipality Shuto Orizari.
If the Romani language lives, the Roma will live too!
Ibrahim Osmani, professor from Preshevo, Serbia
Tey jivdi i chib jivdo si thay o Rom!
The language is the first and the most important characteristic of one people. Every nation got their name trough the language that they speak. All nations, communities, develop their native language as essential matter for their culture and development. But with the Roma its not so. They run away from it, they are ashamed from it and they don’t teach their children how to speak their native language. However, besides that, the Romani language is still alive
The history of the Roma people is a large unwritten Odyssey, which exists only in their conscience. Behind the Roma, there are very few historical data, from official sources. The people that don’t write for them selves seem like they don’t exist. This is the reason why there was a large period in which many people thought differently about the origin of the Roma. They made a really big trip across the world on which they were followed by bad luck. Still, thanks to the good spirit and with small or big losses, they manage to sustain to live to today, keeping their uniqueness and specific culture. Their fire never seems to extinguish!
