Roma and Ashkalia Documentation Center
PRISTINA: Roma and Ashkalia Documentation Center is opened with the support from OSCE and the Warsaw based ODIR organization (Office for Democratic Institutions and Rights). They work with Roma, Ashkalia and Egyptian minorities in kosovo and they represent an information center providing different forms of aid. Ahead of the World Day of Roma (8th of April) we visited them in Pristina and spoke about their current activities.
"We provide various information, for example from what's the situation in the Roma camps in Mitrovica to job vacancies. In Kosovo there is Kosovo Roma and Ashkalia Forum which is a network of NGOs trying to raise the Roma issues to a higher level. Our center helps the Forum", said Sebastijan Serifovic, one of the managers of the Center.
The staff of the Center are in the field in Mitrovica, Plemetina, Skopje, Gracanica, every day. Their task is to exchange information and talk with people about all problems.
"We can't bring aid to people, such as food or clothes but we help them in other ways. We act as an intermediary in many administrative services and we direct people to the right addresses. In the last months we have been helping the so-called forced returnees from Western Europe. We help them with personal documentation, we go with them to the municipal representatives trying to help them to integrate into Kosovo society. We come into many problems because we are often told that they can't help us because there is no repatriation agreement with the countries they have been forced to return from", says Bekim Sulja, also one of the managers of the Center.
"No one accepts those people in terms of helping them get a job, enroll their children in school and such, because many of them, especially the young, are in Kosovo for the first time. Many of them don't speak any Roma language and it is really difficult for them to adapt".
Besides daily contacts with the people in the field, the Center plans to employ a contact person in each municipality in order to collect information and help people more quickly.
On the occasion of the World Day of Roma, Soren Jessen Petersen invited all the members of the civic society who appreciate democratic principles to oppose any form of discrimination, intolerance and prejudice towards ethnic minorities including Roma and to work on the creation of a tolerant democratic society in Kosovo,
"Danas i Sutra", 15. 3. - 15. 4. 2006.
("Danas i Sutra" is an organ of the Local Information Centers in Kosovo. They distributed free copies to the participants of the recent UNHCR meeting in Belgrade)
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