a few seconds agoJournalist Orhan Galushi returns to Prizren to help Roma fellow citizens
Periskopi(5 years ago)
(5 years ago)He took thousands of miles to come to Prizren and compete in the February 14th elections. Orhan Galushi has left her homeland for 35 years and lives in the Netherlands. This 65-year-old, belonging to the Roma community, works as a journalist in Amsterdam. He and the party he has competed with in this election, Kosovaki Nevi [...]
Orhan Galushi has left her homeland for 35 years and lives in the Netherlands. This 65-year-old, belonging to the Roma community, works as a journalist in Amsterdam.
He and the party he has competed with in this election, Kosovaki Nevi Romani Party, has not won last Sunday's election.
In an interview for Radio Free Europe, he shows why he returned to Kosovo.
“You know that Roma are in the margin here in Kosovo, even people in Kosovo should be educated as to how elements of democracy should be used. We all know education is the way to freedom. Why are Roma out of school? What happened here? What's the story? I will become a strong, good, beautiful bridge for Kosovo's Roma to succeed in developing such projects that the standard of Roma and Kosovars will change”, Galushi says.
The neighborhood she grew up in hasn't changed much. Conditions for living are still difficult.
Orhan is already visiting families to see what is missing them.
Unemployment in Roma communities, Ashkali and Egypt is higher than in other communities.
Orhan Galush's neighborhood residents' polls deal with just unemployment.
I'm not working, chica s. I'm just going. If it wasn't for the defi, I'd starve”, says a Roma woman while talking to Orhan Galush.
Orhan Galushi's wish is to help the young Roma community follow their dreams.
“S along with you must slowly form a group, a large group with the new generation, so that the students who are, will develop, contribute to our people, for Kosovo especially”, Galushi says after meeting with some young Roma community in Prizren.
The Roma communities, Ashkali and Egyptian (RAE), are officially known as separate communities in Kosovo, and under the constitution, enjoy equal rights with all other communities.
According to the 2011 population census, up to 400,000 citizens of these communities live in Kosovo. Meanwhile, according to data published on the Office's website on community issues under the Kosovo Prime Minister's Office, the unemployment rate in communities is estimated at between 90 percent and 100 percent.
According to data from the Rome Documentation Center, Ashkali and Egypt, up to 80 percent of those communities are unemployed.
Why don't Roma children attend education?
Organisations dealing with the protection of non-most communities in Kosovo say that the level of involvement of children of the Roma community -- Ashkali and Egypt -- is very low in education.
Sofia Toska from the Kosovo Education Organisation tells Radio Free Europe why the children and youth of the Roma community, Ashkali and Egyptian, do not follow the lesson.
“Starting with essential needs, such as lack of improper personal hygiene, lack of clothing, parental underestimation, lack of parental support, lack of self-confidence and safety in school, extreme poverty, and a serious economic situation”, Toska says.
She says the state of Kosovo should do even more in terms of educating the children of these communities.
We do not note, at least as NGOs, any more serious efforts that help these communities for a better future and for more concrete steps that would improve their situation, but everything is remaining only in strategy and legislation, but not on the implementation side”, Toska adds.
According to the 2011 population census, about 9,000 Roma live in Kosovo.
