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PIROT
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Activities
of Roma organisations in Pirot Region
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Author:
NGO
Pirgos
Jevrejska
8, 18300 Pirot
Tel/Fax: 010/335 797
E-mail: pirgos@ptt.yu
Web: www.pirgos.org.yu |
KIC
Pralipe-Pirot is a non-party-oriented, non-governmental and
non-profit association of citizens, whose goal is the emancipation
and standardization of all life-important issues for the Roma. The
association was founded on 20 June 2001. This organisation’s
activists want to contribute to the strengthening of the Roma
population through their work and to providing conditions for the
integration of the Roma into the community.
The goals of KIC
Pralipe are:
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Education
and standardization of all life-important issues for the Roma,
-
Education
of women and children,
-
Opening
a kindergarten for pre-school children,
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Work
on providing faster employment for the Roma,
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Improvement
of knowledge of the Serbian language for the purpose of
understanding school work better,
-
Activities
concerning folklore, culture and sport,
-
Organising
radio and TV broadcasts on the Roma people.
Representatives
of KIC Pralipe have participated in a lot of meetings, forums and
seminars on the position of minorities, problems of the Roma and
the development of the civil sector in general.
One
of the activities of Pralipe was organising a two-week folklore
school during the winter holiday, which was attended by about 90
children.
The
project “Education for the future of the Roma” included
ecology and biology workshops, held in the period from December
2001 to January 2002. About twenty children attended 10 workshops
(2x45 min. once a week).
Towards
the end of January there was a forum at the Pirot Town Hall within
the campaign “Law on environmental protection”, and KIC
Pralipe took part in printing and distributing the advertising
material, as well as in the forum itself.
All
Pirot NGOs participated in the anti-corruption campaign
“Corruption has two faces”. The campaign was financed by the
USAID.
Pralipe
organised a ceremony on 8 April, on the occasion of the World Day
of the Roma, at the reading room of the National Library in Pirot.
Pirot publicists and journalists participated, as well as Roma
music groups. The subjects were basic principles of the new Law on
National Minorities and the old and well-known Roma people from
Pirot.
Towards
the end of March KIC Pralipe organized the visit of the Roma
Theatre KHAM from Nis
with the play «Little Red Riding Hood» in Romany.
KIC
Pralipe has also started the action for winning scholarships,
granted to the Roma students by OSI Budapest. So far, five Roma
students from Pirot have won from $500 to $1,000 annual
scholarships. This schoolyear, five new candidates will get
scholarships, and the applications are due by 15 October.
The
Roma Educational Centre was founded on 1 August in cooperation
with the Society for the Improvement of Roma Settlements, UNICEF,
the German governmental organisation THV and the local self-management. The goals of the Educational
Centre are help in teaching, preparation of children for school,
work with pre-school children, improvement of the knowledge of
Serbian and integration of the Roma children into the community.
There are two pre-school teachers at the Centre, 2 teachers'
assistants and 4 primary school teachers (they have all been hired
from the Labour Exchange).
Within
the Children's Week held from 7 to 14 October, the children and
staff from the Educational Centre organised a Milk Party, on which
occasion the children consumed milk the entire day. The children
from the Centre had children from the kindergarten «Lane» from
Pirot as guests.
KIC
Pralipe has started a series of activities in order to improve the
utilities of the Roma settlement. One of them is forming a
separate local community for the Roma
(«Rasadnik»).
In
cooperation with Dragoljub Djordjevic, Sociology Professor at
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering from Nis,
KIC Pralipe has conducted a survey among 15 Roma and 5
non-Roma families living next to the Roma settlements. The
objective was to determine the extent of the integration of the
Roma into the society and the extent of tolerance from both sides.
According to the records of KIC Pralipe, there are 2,500 to 3,000
Roma in Pirot Municipality. The survey covered the family status,
educational and economic structure and relationship with
neighbours and work colleagues. The survey results showed there
was not any discrimination in Pirot, that 10% of the Roma
respondents lived only on social aid,
as well as that there were not large families .
Another
problem of the Roma is the fact that parents do not pay enough
attention to their children's education. The level of education
among the Roma is low, and a lot of parents, in order to avoid
schooling costs, enrol their children in schools for children with
special needs.
The
realisation of KIC Pralipe projects has been supported by: Fund
for an Open Society-Belgrade, OSCE, USAID, UNICEF and the German
governmenal organisation THV.
Besides
KIC Pralipe, there is also the Roma Society in Pirot. There are
also Roma societies in Dimitrovgrad and Bela Palanka, whereas this
kind of organisation has not yet been formed in Babusnica.
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