a monthly periodical of the roma inclusion office the … 16/engleski.pdf · the roma decade in ap...

1The Roma Decade in AP Vojvodina

The Roma Decade in

AP Vojvodina

A Monthly Periodical of The Roma Inclusion Office no

. 16,

May

201

2.

PRe-school TeAcheRs fRoM RoMA DePARTMenT

Interview:Marko Radosavljević

Interview: Čedomir Božić

2 The Roma Decade in AP Vojvodina

The Founder and the Published of the Periodical:The Roma Inclusion Office of the

Government of AP Vojvodina

The Editor:Duško Jovanović, dipl. ing. of agriculture

The editor of theme of the number:Duško Jovanović, dipl. ing. of agriculture

The Team:Dragana Rajić

Snežana Dimić, dipl. pedagogistZita Farkaš, pharmachologist

Correspondents:Roma Coordinators of APV

prof. dr Vladimir GecelovskyIvana Koprivica, dipl. psychologist

Translation in Roma language:Igor Dimić, preschool teacher

Translation in English language:Mirjana Serdar, BA in English Philology

Technical Preparation and Printing:MAXIMA GRAF, Petrovaradin

[email protected]

Circulation: 1000

Address: Bulevar Mihajla Pupina 25,21000 Novi Sad

InTRoDucTIonDear readers, Happy anniversary of our monthly magazine! We

wish it to be more interesting, more read and purpose-ful!

We would like to point out one exceptionally impor-tant fact about our monthly magazine: for several months we have been the only magazine on the territory of the entire Republic of Serbia which deals with the problems of Roma only – we inform our readers of the problems of Roma, their culture and history in Roma, Serbian and En-glish and we are trying to show and prove that the Roma are as equally valuable as any other nation and thus dese-rve the same opportunity to be educated, employed and given health care. However…

When we say – the only magazine…We cannot say that we are proud of it… We have a great responsibility for being the only

one. Our greatest wish is to help individuals, organiza-tions and institutions to solve certain Roma issues in their environment, according to the model we offer them, but also we wish to contribute to the elimination of preju-dices which non-Roma have against Roma population. We wish to motivate Roma, with the positive example of their countrymen, to try hard, make progress and start thinking – If he/she can do it, so can I.

The criticisms we received so far have been only oral and mainly positive. We want to believe that that was not done only out of politeness.

We believe that in the last year, in the period of our existence, we got to know each other and that we can already ask each other everything. Also, we are ready to hear you, the reason of our existence, and to adjust to your taste and to consider your opinion.

We wish to communicate with you, which is why we are introducing an innovation: all your comments for our monthly magazine, positive and negative criticism, recommendations related to the topics you would (not) like to see in our and your magazine, all of which you can send on our e-mail address: [email protected] and contribute to the quality of our magazine “De-cade of Roma in AP Vojvodina”.

We want to hear your opinion and to justify your trust...

The Team


This month’s topic: Pre-school Teachers from Roma Department

- This is the second time I ap-plied for the studies. The first time, it did not go well at the Academy of Criminalist and Police Studies in Zemun. I got the idea to try aga-in from the director Dragana Di-mitrov, the Roma Inclusion Office and of course, my mentor Dragan Popov. They helped me a lot finan-cially, paid my enrollment expen-ses, medical examination and travels. At the academy, I sat two psychological tests and three per-sonality tests. I passed all of them. When the results came, they conc-luded that I was too emotional. The psychologist told me to try working with children, since I was emotional. Then, I found out that my monitor Merima Nika was fi-nishing her studies for a pre-school teacher at the Pre-school Teacher Training College “Mihailo Palov” in Vrsac. I called her immediately and talked with her. She helped me a lot and gave a lot of information

about that school. I liked it very much, because if I finish it I will be able to work with children, and I really love children.

Incidentally, I mentioned that I was a scholar of the project “The Inclusion of Roma Children in High School in AP Vojvodina” and we – all final year students in-cluded in this project – even had an organized visit to the College.

That occasion just strengthened my wish to become a pre-school teacher. I am already studying for the entrance exam. The entrance exam will be held in the end of June and it consists of two sub-jects – the Roma language and knowledge of general information. I hope that I will pass it and enroll on the College.

DIRecTeD TowARDs woRkIng wITh chIlDRenHigh school student on his final year, Danijel Vojnov, discusses the way he realized he was not meant to study in a police academy, but to work in a kindergarten. Based on his words, we concluded: it does not matter if we had fallen, it is important that we have risen.

Danijel Vojnov

Danijel Vojnov

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The FIRsT GRAduATe ABOuT TO GeT A New JOBThe director of the Roma Inclusion Office promised to hire the first Roma student who graduates from the Pre-school Teacher Training College “Mihailo Palov” in Vrsac, with the support of the president of the Government of AP Vojvodina Dr. Bojan Pajtic.

“My colleagues and I are extra motivated by that. Every-one wants a full-time job, so we worked extra hard to fulfill our dreams. The exams were diffi-cult but that wasn’t a problem for us considering the motiva-tion they gave us. I have three exams left in September exami-nation period and I know that I am going to pass them and gra-duate by the end of September. Other colleagues have more exams left, but that does not mean that they are not going to graduate before me. For now, it is uncertain which one of us four will graduate first” Merima Nika is thrilled.

Briefly about the school

The education of teachers in Vrsac dates back to 1854, when the German Teacher’s School was founded. The teacher’s de-partment was opened in 1949,

when the pedagogical academy was transformed into Higher School of Pre-school Teacher Training, which was accredited in 2007 and renamed as a Pre-school Teacher Training Colle-ge Mihailo Palov.

There are undergraduate and graduate studies at the Col-lege. The undergraduate studies include two majors: vocational pre-school teacher and nursery school teacher. Graduate studies consist of two majors: specialist for the affirmation of children’s creativity and specialist for pre-paratory pre-school age.

Roma Department

Roma department for pre-school teacher training was opened in the school year 2009/2010. The opening cere-mony was organized on October 1st, 2009.

This department was ope-

ned thanks to the initiative of the Roma Inclusion Office, more precisely, the cooperation of the Provincial Secretariat for Edu-cation, the director of the Roma Inclusion Office Dusko Jovano-vic and the director of the Colle-ge Grozdanka Gojkov. Students are allowed to study carefree. They are provided with free en-rollment, free exam applications and free semester validation. In addition, they are provided with free textbooks and instruments (2 synthesizers), as well as with accommodation in a boarding school. Every student receives a monthly scholarship from the Office which amounts to 6000 dinars, which is usually used for boarding school fees and student restaurant meals. Two computers were donated to stu-dents, as a reward for previous success and a stimulus for the future. One computer is placed in the library, while the other is in the boarding school. Students visited Bucharest, got to meet their fellow colleagues of the same national community and attended the lecture of the pro-fessor Jon Saragu.

The study program vocatio-nal pre-school teacher – Roma major lasts for 3 years (six se-mesters). Every year students need to pass 14 exams, which are mostly professional – pe-dagogic. Class attendance is compulsory. Every semester incorporates 6 compulsory sub-jects and one in mother tongue – Roma language, while the se-

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cond year includes two exams in Roma in both semesters. Thus, the students of the Roma major are different from others becau-se they also attend lectures in their mother tongue.

The lecturers of elective co-urses are experts in their fields. In the first semester, students must take the subject the Roma language taught by Professor Dr. Rajko Djuric from Belgrade and teaching assistant Marija Alek-sandrovic, MA from Novi Sad. Two-semester subject Vocal-instrumental program, which the students must take in the second and third semester, is taught by Professor Dr. Zoran Mulic from Novi Sad. European context is a subject which is also taken in the third semester and taught by Professor Dr. Rajko Djuric. In the fourth semester, the subjects in the mother tongue are Chil-dren’s Literature and Culture

of Speech, taught by Professor Djuric and his teaching assistant Marija Aleksandrovic.

After the graduation, stu-dents of the Roma major will acquire the title of a vocational pre-school teacher (in Serbian and Roma languages) and when compared to others, they will have more advantages in em-ployment.

Up to now, three genera-tions of students enrolled on this department. This year, great attention was devoted to infor-ming students about the above-mentioned school, so a conside-rable interest is expected.

satisfied with studying conditions

College student Merima Nika expressed her satisfaction with her choice of this depart-ment. She is extremely satis-fied with the cooperation with professors and school director. She told us that it was not easy for her and her colleagues when they came to the new environ-ment, considering the fact that they are not from Vrsac. She ad-ded: “The first impressions we had when we moved in the bo-arding school were really good, because everyone greeted us with a smile, which encouraged us a lot. We were welcome eve-rywhere. We have never felt any kind of discrimination, either from our colleagues or profes-sors. The studying conditions in Vrsac were excellent. In the bo-arding school we feel at home; the food at the student restau-rant is great and diverse and we all cooperate and hang out. It is a real pleasure to study in your mother tongue. We are looking forward to the fact that we will

be able to teach and educate Roma children, who need con-siderable attention in pre-scho-ol. I hope that, with our employ-ment, parents of Roma children will be satisfied and will gain confidence in us.”

As an answer to our qu-estion if it is hard to study at the College, Merima said that a lot of studying and reading await them, but that everything can be mastered successfully, so they pass their exams regu-larly, which is the result of their permanent work and good co-operation with colleagues and professors. She complained to us about having some problems with a certain exam, which is difficult, but that all of them are preparing seriously for it, in which their older colleagues are helping them with their expe-rience and advice. “Thanks to our good relations, there is not a single problem we cannot so-lve!” she added.

Roma were given the op-portunity to acquire higher edu-cation in their mother tongue. Vrsac provides them with some-thing that is not provided any-where in whole Europe. Future pre-school teachers from the Roma department will get an employment in their profession after the studies. They do not have any obligations towards the Office, Secretariat or Colle-ge, but they do have a moral ob-ligation to help their nation and give the children of pre-school institutions a good base for in-clusion in primary educational system.

Dragana Dimitrov

A small number of Roma are present in edu-cational institutions, which results in distrust of Roma families in these institutions. Considering the fact that a certain pre-knowledge is necessary for a successful enrollment on primary school, the starting position of Roma children is much worse than other children, precisely because parents do not send their children to pre-school in-stitutions. We assume that the above mentioned sta-te will improve when the members of their national community, who are study-ing in Vrsac, are appointed as pre-school teachers.


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ćThis month’s topic: Pre-school Teachers from Roma Department


Interview: Marko Radosavljevic, director of the Administration for Joint Services of the Provincial Authorities

A long lIsT of ADMInIsTRATIon’s TAsks There is a young educated woman of Roma nationality among the employees of the Administration for

Joint Services of the Provincial Authorities. That was our reason to have a conversation with the director of the Administration for Joint Services Marko Radosavljevic, who explained to us the tasks and services of the Administration for Joint Services. In the end we asked him whether they will continue the policy of employing young experts who belong to one of the national minorities.

* How and when was the Administration for Joint Servi-ces of the Provincial Authorities formed?

− At the beginning of June 2010, the Government of Vojvo-dina made a decision about the formation of the Administration for Joint Services of the Pro-vincial Authorities, according to which the then Service for General and Common Affairs continued to work under the new name. The Administration operates technical and common services for the Assembly and the Government of Vojvodina, provincial administration – se-cretaries and provincial special administrative organizations – institutes and directorates, Pro-vincial Ombudsman, Provincial Attorney General and for servi-ces or administrations for tech-nical affairs for Provincial Go-vernment.

* What are the Administra-tion’s main activities?

− According to the Decision on the Administration for Joint Services of the Provincial Au-thorities, we perform normati-ve-legal, general legal, technical-operative and administrative ta-sks related to the property of the Province of Vojvodina; we pre-pare acts related to the Provin-ce’s property and tasks related to leasing of office premises.

The Administration also per-forms legal, technical-operative and administrative tasks in the area of public procurement and our activities also include mate-rial-financial services, accoun-ting, technical-operative and sta-tistical activities concerned with the making of financial plan and procurement plan, inventory of the Province of Vojvodina, insu-rance and conduction of records of public procurements.

Informational and techni-

cal-operative tasks in the areas of information technology, tele-communications and press, capi-tal constructions, current and in-vestment maintenance of office buildings of AP Vojvodina, tasks of physical and technical secu-rity and conducting of measures of anti-fire security, office ma-nagement, provision of catering services in internal restaurants of office buildings of the Pro-vince and organization of the holiday center “Vojvodina” with an annex in Igalo, transport by official cars and vehicle mainte-nance – all these are tasks from the long list of Administration’s activities, which acts as a legal entity, while its work is financed by the budget of the Province of Vojvodina.

* Are there any Roma em-ployees in the Administration?

Since last year there is one highly-educated Roma woman, employed in the Administration. We didn’t have any other cases where people of Roma nationali-ty applied for our job openings.

* What message are you gi-ving to the Roma community?

− The door of the Admi-nistration for Joint Services is always open for all young and educated cadres, either Roma or any other national minority.

Snežana Dimić

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Interview


Interview: The president of the municipality of Zabalj Čedomir Božić

wITh knowleDge To InVesTMenTs

* The problem of unemploy-ment represents one of the prima-ry causes of poverty and all con-sequences it brings. What plans do you have for the solution of the unemployment problem in the municipality of Zabalj?

- I would first like to point out that the most important thing is the participation on which I insisted when we formed local authority. It is a value we must represent and it means the inc-lusion of citizens in the solution of certain problems. If there is cooperation, we can solve more easily the problems put forward by the citizens, or the local au-thority. One of the main goals in the next four years is decreasing poverty rate and increasing li-ving standard of our citizens. We will solve the problem of pover-ty by opening industrial zones, creating business environment and conditions that will attract

domestic and foreign investors. Opening of firms which would employ our citizens and solve the unemployment problem will reflect the increase of the living standard of the citizens, which would solve the problem of po-verty.

* Do you think that in that way you can solve the problem of poverty in the long run? How can you provide the means for the decrease of the unemploy-ment rate?

The most important thing is to invest in knowledge, because knowledge will lead us to invest-ments. That is one of the priori-ties of our local authority. Prima-rily, creating a strong connection with schools and establishing good cooperation, in order to invest more money in scientific disciplines which will subsequ-ently contribute to the economy

of the municipality of Zabalj. In that way, high-quality cadres will be created.

* Do you plan to include people with disabilities in the projects which you are going to realize?

- Of course we are going to include people with disabili-ties in all projects of the muni-cipality of Zabalj. We will pay special attention to them during employment. We have extraor-dinary cooperation with associa-tions which solve problems of the people with disabilities and we are at their disposal.

* What position do women have in your municipality? Is the gender equality respected, i.e. do women have the same rights as men?

- Gender equality must be respected and the municipality of Zabalj will emphasize this seg-ment of human equality, in addi-tion to all values and goals we set as a local authority.

* Will the municipal authori-

ty be at your citizens’ disposal? - Yes. The municipal go-

vernment will represent a service for our citizens, i.e. it will be a socially responsible authority.

* You have four years of experience with working in the previous authority. Will that be a motive and a reason for young,

In the conversation with the president of the municipality of Zabalj, Cedomir Bozic, an economist, we discussed plans for the work and development of the municipality, realization of the working zone and de-creasing of unemployment rate, his way to this position and participation of citizens in decision making and problem solving. We must say that Cedomir Bozic is one of the youngest municipality presidents in Serbia, since the introduction of democracy in the nineties.

Čedomir Božić, president of Žabalj municipality

Photo: From Žabalj municipality archive

Interview


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educated people from your muni-cipality, but also from others, to come and help make the strate-gy of the Province of Vojvodina more visible and sustainable?

- I think that my life, pre-vious experience and participa-tion in authority can encourage young people on the territory of the municipality of Zabalj , but also the ones outside, to contri-bute and help as much as they can. All people are welcome and I expect to participate together in the realization of the strategy of the municipality of Zabalj.

* How do you function?The municipality of Zabalj

insists on projects. We are cur-rently forming a special team for local economic development, we formed a team for rural deve-lopment and we have a team for Roma inclusion. We are going to unite the teams and apply for funds of the Province of Vojvo-dina, the Republic of Serbia, but also EU funds.

* Since the municipality of Zabalj will consist of teams, how important is the education of te-ams and monitoring of changes and innovations? Are you wor-king in that field?

- The teams are constantly being educated and they often have trainings. We invest in the knowledge of our people. With knowledge we can get new in-vestments, working positions, improvement of the living stan-dard.

* Will the public have access to these activities of the local self-government?

- The work of the local sel-f-government and local organs of authority will be transparent.

* As one of the youngest mu-nicipality presidents, you have plans for big changes. Are they feasible? Can your example sti-mulate a greater engagement of young people?

- I can say that I got my opportunity on time. I achieved everything with my own work, alone. With projects, engage-ment and participation, coope-ration with citizens, and all this later had impact on the position of the president of a local self-government.

I think that momentarily I am the youngest municipality president in the Republic of Ser-bia, which should be an additio-nal stimulus for young people to take part in the work of local self-governments, not just in the municipality of Zabalj, but also on the territory of the entire Re-

public of Serbia. Only with their own ideas, they can change the-ir environment and position for better future.

* You said that in hundred days you are going to hold a press conference where you will present your results. What plans do you have?

- Yes, after one hundred days of local self-government’s work, we will hold a press confe-rence where we will present our results. Everyone is expected to show the results of work, from an employee at the municipal administration to the officials in the local authority. Of course, the above mentioned dynamics “one hundred days of local authority’s work” will continue and we will constantly inform the media.

* What is your message for the citizens?

- I must say that we respec-ted the transparency and work in the local self-government. The message is that the local self-government is a service for citizens and that the citizens are most important in the work of the local self-government. Only the citizens’ participation and the-ir evaluation of our work leads to our improvement and in this way the satisfactory consensus between citizens and the repre-sentatives of the authority can be achieved.

Snežana Dimić

“I think that momentarily I am the youngest municipality president in the Republic of Serbia, which should be an additional stimulus for young people to take part in the work of local self-governments, not just in the municipality of Zabalj, but also on the territory of the entire Republic of Serbia. Only by using their ideas, they can change their position for better future. “

Interview


Ivan Jovanovic, coordinator for Roma issues

CONTRIBuTes TO The develOPMeNT OF The MuNICIPAlITy The municipality of Pecinci is located in the lower, level Syrmia. It has approximately twenty

one thousand inhabitants. Favorable geographical and traffic position, the proximity of Belgrade and several big economic centers in Vojvodina, airport “Nikola Tesla”, various natural resources – these are only some potentials of this municipality. In the attractive working zone “Simanovci” in the last ten years several big companies have been working successfully, which started the development of the entire municipality, so Pe-cinci became a synonym for a successful local self-government.

“Despite rapid economic development, there is still no solution for numerous issues of the social position of Roma in Pecinci”, the coordinator for Roma issues and president of a citizens’ association “Romano Anglunipe”, Ivan Jovanovic, said. He reminded us that the employment is one of the most important tasks set in the Deca-de of Roma and its solution is very slow, which is not on the expected level.

“There are a few Roma set-tlements in Pecinci and the li-ving conditions in some of them are extremely difficult”, Jova-novic, who was the first presi-dent of the Roma Association in Vojvodina, said. He added that in some Roma settlements the-re were no basic infrastructure,

water, electricity, asphalted stre-ets.

In spite of the fact that the position of a coordinator for Roma issues has not yet been systematized in the municipali-ty, Jovanovic said that several projects were successfully reali-zed and their goal was to contri-bute to better social position of the members of the Roma com-munity.

Three of their projects in the area of health education and promotion of healthcare were realized in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and Pecinci Health Center. The first two de-alt with the promotion of repro-ductive health and they incorpo-rated women 15 to 65 years of age. The third project dealt with the suppression of infectious di-

seases and it also drew good re-sponse from the members of the Roma community.

“Certain results were achie-ved in the fulfillment of human rights of the Roma communi-ty members”, was Jovanovic’s judgment. He added: “But we cannot be completely satisfied with that. What we achieved is giving necessary help to our co-untrymen who are socially most vulnerable”, Jovanovic said and remembered the way the money for the construction of one room in the family house of Stevan Filipovic was obtained.

All eleven members of that family lived in a room with high humidity, without even basic conditions for decent living.

The twelve-member family of Zeljko Jovanovic from the village of Asanji lived in diffi-cult conditions and Ivan gives another example:

“In cooperation with the lo-cal community Asanja and the municipality of Pecinci, that fa-mily was given a house to live in, and there are more similar examples”.

However, the one thing that Ivan Jovanovic remembers gla-dly is his first success – when he provided Roma children in the municipality of Pecinci with free textbooks.

Snežana Dimić

Ivan Jovanović with users

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coordinator for Roma issues


The PRoMoTIon of eDucATIon

In the last five years, the Roma Inclusion Office of the Province of Vojvodina has or-ganized forums intended for Roma children, their parents, coordinators for Roma issues, pedagogical assistants, repre-sentatives of Roma non-govern-mental organizations and other entities who are involved in the process of Roma inclusion, in order to inform them about the benefits provided for the Roma population.

This time forums were or-ganized in cooperation with the Provincial Secretariat for Education, Administration and National Communities, i.e. re-presentatives of a project “Inc-lusion of Roma children in high schools”. The forums were held

in Novi Sad, Subotica, Vrsac, Zrenjanin, Zabalj, Stara Pazova and all other centers where a lar-ge number of students of Roma nationality had been recorded.

Besides many high schools, the forum was also organized in the Elementary School “Veljko Vlahovic” in Sangaj. The ini-tiative was started by Dragana Dimitrov, a librarian of the first Roma library on Balkan “Trifun Dimic” in Sangaj, who learned through working with children that they were not informed enough about Measures of af-firmative action and different scholarships for which they had the right to apply.

The set of measures which serve the educational inclusion of Roma was presented by: the

state secretary of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, State Administration and Local Self-government Slavica Denic, MA, director of the Roma Inc-lusion Office of the Province of Vojvodina Dusko Jovanovic and Dragana Dimitrov as the direc-tor of the project of scholarships for Roma high school students. The director of Sangaj Elemen-tary School presented benefits for poor children secured by the school and emphasized the extraordinary coordination with the governmental and non-go-vernmental sector. Pedagogue Jadranka Mestrov and teacher Dina Zavarko, both employed in Sangaj Elementary School, presented their experience in working with Roma children, as well as the definition of problem and suggestion of possible solu-tions.

Twenty students, mostly graduates, were sitting in the first rows, while their parents and teachers were sitting be-hind.

The Director Djumic em-phasized the existing national, cultural and religious diversity of the students: “All our stu-dents, regardless of their natio-nality, equally participate in all educational and cultural activi-ties, according to their affinities and abilities.” We tend to break

The first steps which lead to the increase of the educational level of the Roma population have been made – the Measures of Affirmative Action were voted for and adopted, scholarships for Roma high school and university students were distributed, a study program for pre-school teacher training in Roma language started… However, final users of these benefits are not interested very much in benefits offered to them; they do not follow electronic and print media, do not mingle and are not informed enough, which leads to the situ-ation in which they do not enroll on high schools and faculties due to their lack of knowledge and information and because students and their parents still believe that that is too expensive for them. That is why it is very important that the information about strong moral and financial support reach its final beneficiaries – the Roma population. If not, our efforts were in vain…

High school students to be

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the prejudice that Roma stu-dents are bad students. It is true that such students need help in developing cultural or hygienic habits; however, we should em-phasize the fact that we are pro-ud of our Roma students with excellent and very good grades, who have the energy and will to continue schooling and achieve good results.”

In the school we are all de-dicated to one goal: we want every child to feel good. In or-der to preserve Roma national identity, the Roma language has been introduced in the school as an elective subject, attended by students who are divided into two groups: one group from the first to the fourth grade and ano-ther from the fifth to the eighth grade. They have one class a week.

The school director said that, thanks to the City Admi-nistration for Social Welfare, families with three or more chil-dren, who receive child welfare, were provided with a free after school care and snacks. Thanks to the cooperation with the Red Cross, every year the students spend their summer holiday in Baosici and receive free textbo-oks and in cooperation with the Center for Social Welfare, they receive one-time aid. Non-go-vernmental sector regularly re-alizes their ideas in Sangaj and thus contributes to the promo-tion of the position of Roma and the education of Roma children, as well as the development of tolerance among the children.

When it comes to discri-mination, although it has been stopped to a great extent, it still exists. The prejudices still exist among the children and at the

forum it was concluded that they are part of home upbrin-ging, because the children ad-opt their parents’ attitudes that Roma children are less worthy than other children.

It was also revealed that a certain number of students hide their national identity, which is why these forums are very si-gnificant.

The forum’s topic was the representation of programs which contribute to the impro-vement of the educational le-vel of Roma, particularly the program which deals with the inclusion of Roma children in high schools in the Province of Vojvodina.

“Thanks to the daily con-tact I have with children who visit the library “Trifun Dimic” in Sangaj every day, I realized that children are not informed enough about the possibilities of education, accommodation and employment”, the librarian Dragana Dimitrov said. That is why, in the cooperation with the Roma Inclusion Office and the Elementary School “Veljko Vlahovic”, the idea about orga-nizing a forum was realized and it was attended by children, who were present in the school, but also their parents and teachers. Why teachers? Because they ne-eded to become more sensitive in their work with Roma chil-dren and because the program had to be presented to them in the right way, so that they co-uld prepare in their daily work with Roma students for the continuation of education and know why it is important for Roma children to be educated. This year is the fifth year of the project, which was financed by

the Open Society Fund from Belgrade and Roma Education Fund from Budapest. The se-cond phase of the project, which is in the process, includes four hundred and one scholars. The program consists of two compo-nents. The first one is financial and the second is mentorship support. The results are visible and they have shown that Roma children, if provided with basic conditions for education, achie-ve extraordinary results. The accuracy of those judgments is confirmed by information that the students who participate in the project have an average gra-de above three fifty. The libra-ry “Trifun Dimic” in Sangaj, as a branch of the city library in Novi Sad, has existed for two years. It is an important factor in Roma children’s education, as well as non-Roma that live in that part. In cooperation with the Roma Inclusion Office, non-governmental organizations and different institutions, it provides the children with everything they need. Besides working with children, studying, participating in workshops and other activi-ties, it also provides children with packages of hygienic and school equipment. The support of the Novi Sad Humanitarian Center is very important becau-se their volunteers come to the library every day, from 3 pm to 5 pm and help in the work with children. A group of seven chil-dren, with whom volunteers and NSHC from France work, was formed.

Dragana Dimitrov

education


education

PRofessIonAl oRIenTATIon In school year 2012/2013, 78 000 students will be enrolled on high schools and 74 000 on faculties.Professional orientation is useful and important in decision making.According to the data of the Republican Institute for Statistics, 78 000 eight-graders and 74 000 high

school graduates will enroll on high schools and faculties throughout Serbia in the academic year 2012/2013. For some, the choice of high school or faculty is a dream come true because they have always known what they wanted to do, but for others it is a very hard decision. Professional orientation can be very helpful in making this decision of life importance, because it can establish or reveal affinities and facilitate choosing a profession. Dr. Ljiljana Kordic, who has more than 20 years of experience in this area, and Sladjana Teo-dorovic, a representative of the association Center for Economic Promotion of Roma (CEUR) from Sremska Mitrovica, discussed what professional orientation was and how important it was.

* What is professional orientation, who is it intended for and how useful is it?

Job takes the biggest part of our lives. The professional sta-tus influences all aspects of our lives, financial state, social sta-tus, the choice of friends. On the other hand, existence and pro-gress of every modern society is based on paid work. It is impor-tant to be satisfied with one’s job and successful in it, but it is also important for the society to cre-ate more jobs and professions.

- Not everyone is equally successful in all occupational fields; there are great differences between abilities, skills, charac-ters and motivation. Professio-nal orientation, as an organized system of technical help and

support for an individual during his or her professional develop-ment, takes into account indi-vidual psycho-physical charac-teristics, knowledge and skills, characteristics of the work itself and society’s capacities for pro-ductive employment of human potentials. Professional orien-tation is intended for young pe-ople who are in the process of schooling and for adults who are changing their occupational field – Dr. Kordic said and added: -In order to be professionally orien-tated, it is important to know the following: what we are good at, what skills we have and what we are capable of, what we like to do, what interests we have, what makes us unique. We sho-uld know our personality, what

is important for us in our lives, i.e. we should know our value orientations (for example ten-dency towards creativity, leader-ship, helping others, risks and adventures, craftsmanship, ack-nowledgments, good working conditions, material benefits and raise, job security) – Dr. Kordic explained and emphasized: - Pe-ople who have abilities, intere-sts and personal values in accor-dance with the profession they practice are satisfied at work, more confident and stronger in enduring negative experience which goes with every job.

*How does the examination look like and what does it con-sist of?

The examination includes an entrance interview with a student and his or her parents, in order to find out their wishes and possibilities. Then, psycho-logical examination is carried out. It can be complex or sim-ple, depending on the student’s characteristics, his or her fami-ly and socioeconomic internal environment.

Examination of intellectu-al skills includes dealing with words, numbers, abstract con-cepts, spatial relations, mecha-nical and observational skills,

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which are connected with acti-vities in certain professions. Ad-ditionally, specific skills, such as music skills, visual acuity, manual dexterity or reaction rate can be examined.

Test of personality traits incorporates dominant charac-teristics (openness – shyness, aggression, ambitiousness, emotional stability, tendency towards domination or obedien-ce etc); usual behavior patterns and reactions, but also interest in studying and acquisition of new knowledge. If someone is shy, reserved and does not enjoy a bigger company, he or she will be more comfortable with jobs performed independently witho-ut many contacts with people, and vice versa.

Examination of professio-nal interests incorporates what students like, what they find comfortable and what they en-joy. Those are activities they do, school subjects they like and everything they consider funny, exciting or challenging. Besides conversation, we usually ap-ply test of professional choice, which involves groups of occu-pational fields, such as: security (military, police, personal se-curity and security of objects), technical sciences (electronics, electrical engineering, mecha-nical engineering and computer science) or services (helping other people enjoy benefits of civilization and dealing with the application of its modern achie-vements).

Professional orientation is usually realized by psychologi-sts, and in some cases a whole expert team, consisting of a do-ctor, psychologist, special edu-cation teacher, pedagogue and a social worker – Dr. Kordic explained.

*How do you advise and di-rect people?

After processing tests, the psychologist talks with the stu-dent and parents about the re-sults of the examination and gi-ves them a written report which includes a recommendation for the choice of a certain profes-sion, or, more often, a choice of a group of occupations – Dr. Kordic explained the process and added: - Professional orien-tation can be primary and secon-dary. Primary orientation refers to consultation during the cho-ice of the first profession. It re-fers mostly to young people who are still in school, or employed people on their first working po-sition. Secondary professional orientation is intended for adults who are changing their pro-fession. Dr. Kordic said that a psychologist or an expert gives people advice on possible pro-fessions via conversation which can be single, immediately after testing or multiple, during the entire process of student’s and parents’ decision making.

* How useful is this type of consultation of children and young people for the selection of the most adequate profession?

Extremely useful – Dr. Kor-dic said and told us her experien-ce: - In the last year of grammar school I went on the professio-nal orientation at the National Employment Service and it was an incredible experience of sel-f-discovering with the support of an expert; finally, that was an experience that directed me towards the job of a counseling psychologist – Kordic remem-bered and said: - Professional orientation is a crucial initial po-int in planning of answering one of the most important questions in life – career.

It is particularly important to take care of the fact that in everyday practice it is not easy to achieve working something we want. The society and its ne-eds must be taken into account. Although everybody has the ri-ght to work in the area they want and for which they were trained, the society cannot secure jobs for all who want it.

Thus, the professional orientation is nowadays a mul-tiple-stage process of training an individual for a profession selection, which includes his or her monitoring in the chosen profession and possible change of the profession in their wor-king life – the doctor said.

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* What are the challenges and difficulties in career coun-seling, i.e. professional orienta-tion?

The challenges are related to counseling of students with development difficulties, on one hand, and counseling of gifted students, who have a wide range of interests, on the other hand. When it comes to families, chal-lenges can be related to situ-ations in which parents have a clear vision of the job their child should choose and the child does not fit in that vision, based on his or her characteristics and motivation – Dr. Kordic said briefly.

*Where and who can people interested in professional orien-tation address?

Center for Economic Pro-motion of Roma (CEUR) from Sremska Mitrovica is a young organization which deals with strengthening of Roma com-munity in Serbia, primarily in Sremska Mitrovica. Affirmati-ve measures have their advan-tages and disadvantages, so we decided to start a project which would help young elementary and high school students decide and choose the right profession.

Many girls and boys leave high school or faculty after the first or second year, because they realize that they made a wrong choice.

That is why CEUR is carry-ing out a project “Get Yourself Going”, which is supposed to increase a number of Roma stu-dents enrolled on high schools and faculties. One of the impor-tant turning points in the life of every child is enrollment on high school. They do not only decide which school they are going to enroll on, but they already deci-de on their future. And our goal is to help them in that, to choose the appropriate profession, ac-cording to their possibilities and affinities.

Considering the fact that there are many problems in the educational system, which direc-tly influence the process of edu-cation of Roma children, an ade-quate pedagogic-psychological support represents an appropria-te step in the elimination of that problem – Sladjana Teodorovic said.

* What is your message for future high school and universi-ty students?

Being successful in what we are capable of is a very nice feeling. However, many people have jobs in which their natural talents are not expressed, becau-se they are not connected with the needs of those jobs. For this or that reason, there is a dishar-mony between their knowledge, skills and obligations of the gi-ven job. Knowledge, skills and abilities represent capacities which we bring into our careers and they are not just what we learned in school! They can be simply defined as something we know, something we are capable of doing and abilities we inhe-rited. In job descriptions we see them as qualifications or job re-quirements.

Besides the obvious, each one of us has his or her hidden talents. We discover what our peers, friends, teachers, pro-fessors and families appreciate most in us. Things that we easily succeed in should not be over-looked, because such things can often indicate our strong traits which should be developed.

If we think about the jobs that we would like to do in fu-ture, talking with people who work in that area can be helpful, in order to see what is most im-portant. When we learn that, we can compare our characteristics with the job requirements. This will enable us to recognize the characteristics that we should develop.

Dragana Dimitrov

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The ROMA INClusION OFFICe CeleBRATed sIx yeARs of woRk

The Roma Inclusion Office of AP Vojvodina celebrated six years of work and an anniversa-ry of its monthly internal publi-cation “Decade of Roma in AP Vojvodina”. On that occasion, a press conference was organized, during which the provincial se-cretary for labor, employment and gender equality Miroslav Vasin and the director of the Roma Inclusion Office Dusko Jovanovic discussed results, pro-blems and further plans.

Summing up the results of the previous activities which were directed towards the pro-motion of the position of the Roma, the provincial secreta-ry for labor, employment and gender equality Miroslav Vasin said:

- I wish to shed light on the problems we are facing from the perspective of the Provincial Se-cretariat for Labor, Employment and Gender Equality, which fo-unded this Office. Even though we achieved outstanding results, I think that we are still half way through, which is also questio-nable. The first reason is becau-se we started from an extremely difficult situation, because the

position of the Roma national community was overlooked and swept under the carpet for deca-des. For decades, it was thought that this national community should live in the way it lived and unfortunately, in the way it still lives. When we decided to start solving the problem in an organized way six years ago, we knew what to expect. We knew that every activity done will be only a drop in the ocean; we knew that the work was so exten-sive that we would not be able to say soon that we solved the pro-blem, even its smallest part. For six years we have been making extraordinary efforts to move the Roma national community forward. Excellent results have been achieved during those six years. Everything has been acti-vated, but we still lack the awa-reness about the importance of what we do.

Vasin added: - I first appeal to the society’s awareness which still has not been sufficiently expressed, still does not under-stand how important it is to help the Roma.

The government of Vojvodina helps Roma

It seems to me that Vojvo-dina, or more precisely the Go-vernment of Vojvodina and the president of the Government of Vojvodina, send a very positive message with their example and show how much they care abo-ut the solution of this problem. I am not sure that everyone in the Republic accepts that message to the same extent. It is sufficient to analyze the situation in Vojvodi-na and compare it to the situation in the rest of Serbia. I am not sure that people in all parts of Serbia understand the importance of Roma’s education, employment, starting of Roma companies, in-forming Roma and everything we insist on. I am not sure that the entire public in Vojvodina understands the meaning of what we do. There must be a general consensus that the Roma natio-nal community is the poorest in the society and thus, needs most help. It must not happen that in one environment others are an-noyed by the bigger amount of help we give to the Roma na-tional community than to them. We are facing today a situation in which we are criticized for helping the Roma people more than others. I take such objec-tions as compliments, because we help those who need it most. When the Roma community re-aches the same average position as other communities, then that help will no longer increase.

Improvement of the position of the Roma community

- My first appeal, Vasin said, was that the entire social

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community understood that the civilization problem is one of the most painful problems and that one of the most urgent goals was the improvement of the po-sition of that community which was the most vulnerable. I would like to send the second message to the Roma population. I have an impression that sometimes they do not understand what we want for them, which is not ine-xplicable. If someone keeps one community believing that they are capable of only one type of jobs, that they are meant to be on lower level of education, that they are not capable of fo-unding and running their own shops and companies, then nor-mally you cannot change such understanding for five-six years and boost people’s confidence which will change their opinion. I don’t want Roma parents to be the ones who are stopping their children from getting education, I want Roma leaders to under-stand that all people must work together to make the education and everything I spoke about a priority.

solving problems of Roma

The director of the Roma Inclusion Office, Dusko Jovano-

vic, emphasized what was most important in the Office’s previo-us work.

- We are still the only insti-tution, not just in Serbia, but in the entire Europe, founded in this way which directly deals with the problems of the Roma national community. Our goal is to focus on several important areas, to try, together in coope-ration with domestic and foreign institutions, associations and in-dividuals, to design such pro-jects which aim at integration of Roma and improvement of the position of all members of the Roma national community.

Jovanovic reminded us that Roma are still the poorest cate-gory of population in Europe, that the majority of them lives in enclaves without basic utility infrastructure and that they have the shortest life expectancy, due to extremely bad living condi-tions. He also said that the gre-atest ethnical distance is towards the Roma national community.

Education is the most im-portant

- We strive to include Roma in institutions, because that is the only way to solve problems. We have primarily focused on the area of education. When it

comes to elementary education, unfortunately, we still have a situation in which a number of Roma children are not involved in educational institutions. As far as higher education is con-cerned, we managed to regulate it systematically, starting from the application of measures of affirmative action for the enrol-lment on high schools, colleges and faculties and we have a de-veloped mechanism which is ap-plied. That is why nowadays we have over 300 students of Roma nationality at the University of Novi Sad. In order to increase the number of Roma children in schools, the Office provides one-time financial help for the most successful high school and university students, as well as for the most vulnerable. The project “The Inclusion of Roma Children in High Schools in Vo-jvodina” is being realized by the Provincial Secretariat for Edu-cation, Administration and Na-tional Communities. It has been active in Vojvodina for almost five years. Over 400 high school students receive scholarships in this program. Last year, 139 stu-dents of Roma nationality were enrolled in high schools and 24 students on the first year of uni-versity studies. What is impor-tant for us is that three years ago we started a study program for pre-school teachers in Roma lan-guage at the Pre-school Teacher Training College in Vrsac – Jo-vanovic said.

The employment of Roma

Jovanovic said that in the area of accommodation they tended to solve the problems of utility infrastructure in the Roma residential areas. More than 100 million dinars was spent for the

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paving of streets in many muni-cipalities in Vojvodina. – This year another investment, amo-unting to approximately 50 mil-lion dinars, should be made in three more municipalities: Bela Crkva, Backa Palanka and Sen-ta, where streets will be paved in Roma residential areas.

The project “Social Inclu-sion and Improvement of the Li-ving Conditions in Roma Settle-ments” is being conducted with the Ecumenical Organization. It was realized in ten municipali-ties in Vojvodina; it is being re-alized in Becej and this year it is going to be realized in the mu-nicipalities of Odzaci, Plandiste, Ruma and Novi Sad. Roma ho-uses will be adapted; bathrooms will be constructed and installed to the sewer network. In the last five years, five open competi-tions for employment or self-e-mployment of Roma have been realized. More than 70 different firms and companies were foun-ded. Only in Vojvodina has this

been applied. The project “Incre-asing Employability of Roma”, financed by the EU, is curren-tly being realized. It consists of three components: training for a well-known employer, training for professions in deficit and self-employment of Roma. 20 firms should be founded in the next two years.

- In the end of December we founded the first ten firms and a few days ago, the second open competition for the opening of ten more firms and companies was closed. The subsidy amo-unted to 200 000 dinars and it

included support through logi-stic business package, Jovanovic said.

The magazine of the Roma Inclusion Office

Last year, the printing of a monthly edition of the Roma In-clusion Office, named “The De-cade of Roma in AP Vojvodina” was started in Roma, Serbian and English. Everything which has been done to improve the position of Roma in Vojvodina is presented in the magazine.

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I wAs sITTIng AT The sewIng MAchIne In lAzAReVo

The ten best firms were cho-sen, based on strict criteria of the open competition. Among the newly opened firms were: secon-dary materials collectors, house painter’s shop, mason’s shop, hair salon, fast food restaurant, fish shop, workshop for the pro-duction and restoration of old instruments, firm dealing with environmental arrangement and exterminator’s firm. The firms are opened in the following mu-nicipalities: Novi Sad, Zabalj, Beocin, Odzaci, Novi Knezevac and Pancevo.

Mentorship support, acco-untant’s service for the first six months of business, computer equipment and start-up busi-ness package (seal, visit cards, website…), all of which were provided for free, are of great importance for the beginners in the world of business.

In six-year work of the Roma Inclusion Office and du-ring the realization of this pro-ject ten firms had already been opened in December last year when sixteen workers were em-ployed. This model of the em-ployment of Roma, who have difficulties in finding employ-ment in our society, proved to be very successful. The Roma Inclusion Office will continue to realize such projects, with a tendency for this approach to the problem of the employment of Roma to become a standard model of work.

A symbolic name that captiva-tes – “Romanotex”

In December round of the open competition for self-e-mployment on the territory of the municipality of Zrenjanin, a tailor’s shop of a symbolic name “Romanotex” was opened. The shop’s owner is Mrs. Marija Vuksic.

According to Marija, she has been working for more than ten years and this subsidy helped her to buy two sewing machines which she needed to work more successfully. “Until then, I had to pay for certain services, such as finishing touches, because my old sewing machines couldn’t perform necessary operations. I cut down on my expenses by buying new sewing machines with the money I got from the Roma Inclusion Office, so now I earn more money”, Marija said

and continued: “Now I can start thinking about expanding the business, at least in the sense of hiring someone”.

Mrs. Vuksic has been suc-cessfully attracting her regular customers for years and she retained them with the high qu-ality of her goods. She said that she had specialized for the pro-duction of sheets for adults and children and pajamas. That is what she likes to sew most and where the creative side of her personality can be expressed: “I was always drawing, taking scissors and cutting things aro-und the house. So it wasn’t hard for me to choose my life voca-tion. I like to play with colors, patterns, different materials and to transform my products into little pieces of art. I try to follow the trends…”

Marija has been slowly te-aching her daughter this trade,

In a project “Improving the employability of Roma in AP Vojvodina”, financed by the European Union, the Roma Inclusion Office, as the project leader, in cooperation with the Provincial Secretariat for Labor, Employment and Gender Equality and the National Employment Service, successfully finished a very impor-tant activity in June: an open competition for self-employment. Namely, by applying for the open competition of the Secretariat and the Office, eleven persons of Roma nationality got the opportunity to start their own business with the help of subsidies and turn over a new leaf in their lives.

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just like her mother taught her. “It is very hard to find a good

job today. By opening this firm I gave my child an opportunity

to earn her bread. I am not go-ing to talk her into anything, but we can prosper more easily if we work together”, Marija be-lieves.

The starting of this firm has opened many doors for this lady from Lazarevo. Marija expands the list of loyal customers eve-ry day by giving them a possi-bility of paying in installments, sewing something as a special wish, and being of assistance to others. Marija is winning the market with a steady pace by be-lieving in the motto that a good reputation travels far.

Dragana Rajic

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There is a developed network of institutions of social welfare on the territory of AP Vojvodi-na, consisting of: 41 centers for social welfare and 28 institutions for beneficiaries’ accommoda-tion , which are: 16 Institutions for the accommo-dation of elderly and retired pe-ople 6 Institutions for children and adolescents 3 Institutions for the accommo-dation of the mentally ill 1 Institutions for the blind 2 Institutions for the mentally underdeveloped

In addition to the above men-tioned institutions founded by AP Vojvodina, there are 6 private dormitories for the accommoda-tion of the elderly and retired on its territory.

Beneficiaries of the services of the Provincial Bureau of So-cial Welfare are primarily insti-

tutions of social welfare, institu-tions for users’ accommodation and centers for social welfare, as well as other social service pro-viders (citizen associations, pri-vate physical and legal entities), local self-governments as foun-ders and financiers of an incre-asing number of social welfare services.

Needs, interests as well as expectations of the interested groups are often very different than the Bureau’s. For example, on one hand, the expectations of the Ministry of Work and Social Policy, which is a leader in nor-

mative legal activities and for-mulation of the social policy at the level of the state, are radical changes in the system of social welfare, decentralization and de-institutionalization. On the other hand, the institutions of social welfare, which tended to retain the existing state, are changing

their relation towards changes and are making efforts to direct themselves towards reforms. The institutions still think that they have a small number of employ-ees considering the amount of work and the number of users and that they lack financial means for the realization of new programs and professional training.

After the enactment of the new Law on Social Welfare, the Provincial Secretariat for Health, Social Policy and Demography has taken over the monitoring of professional work in the institu-

tions of social welfare. Consi-dering the significant previous experience of the Bureau in this area, a close cooperation and experience exchange in that area is expected in the following pe-riod. Additionally, the Bureau is also present as a partner and sup-port for the creation of the social

COOPeRATION OF The PROvINCIAl BuReAu wITh oTheR oRgAnIzATIons AnD InsTITuTIons In The

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policy in all areas on the level of Province.

The Republican Bureau of Social Welfare is an institution similar to the Bureau with which a close cooperation must be de-veloped in order to synchronize and balance the incentives and the work on the promotion of the social welfare on the entire terri-tory of the Republic.

In the process of the reform of the social welfare system, the Bureau recognized the local self-governments as important segments of the society. One of the most important strategic di-rections in the following years is the decentralization which would return, among others, the social welfare function to muni-cipalities and cities, because the people’s needs can be satisfied more efficiently, economically and on time in the immediate environment, family and local community.

At the moment, the majori-ty of local self-governments do not give enough funds from the budget for the financing of social welfare services on their territo-ries. In relation to that, in the last couple of years various projects were launched and financed by

the EU funds, in order to streng-then local self-governments and service providers on the local level for the provision of local social welfare services. A special place in these programs is oc-cupied by organizations of civil society which need additional support to improve their resour-ces and to be able to respond to state’s requests related to quality standard of social welfare servi-ces. In addition, in order to reali-ze their role in the planning and realization of these services for the citizens of their communities, the employees and people hired on different basis (volunteers, as-sociates etc) in organizations of service providers and local self-governments need professional support, trainings and education. The Provincial Bureau of Social Welfare has the capacity to pro-vide this support in the process of monitoring of needs in the local community, as well as in planning, providing and monito-ring of services which are finan-ced by the local budget, which should become sustainable.

The Bureau cooperates with numerous professional associa-tions of social welfare which are characterized by expertise and

a high level of competence, but also at the same time by insuffi-cient mutual connection. We plan to include the representatives of professional associations, as well as experts from certain areas of social welfare more actively in the making of proposals of stan-dards, normatives, instructions on expert work, experience and knowledge exchange and con-duction of research in the area of social welfare.

The Bureau recognizes nu-merous potentials in the non-go-vernmental sector: interest in and openness for cooperation, enthu-siasm, flexibility in work, know-ledge of the situation on the field and models of good practice. In the previous period the Bureau invested significant resources in the development of civil sector, and our intention is to continue working on strengthening of the capacities of civil society orga-nizations as social service pro-viders and on encouraging inter-sector cooperation on local and provincial levels.

During the previous years we established cooperation with the Team for Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction, with in-ternational organizations such as UNICEF and UNDP. This coope-ration is mutually useful, mostly in the sense of introduction of inclusive trends and promotion of EU agenda in the system of social welfare in AP Vojvodina.

In the next issue, we will di-scuss innovative services in the social welfare system.

Ivana Koprivica

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cleAn hAnDs of ouR chIlDRenA program “Hand Hygiene in

Education” within a national cam-paign “Clean Hands of Our Chil-dren” was presented at the press conference in the Government of AP Vojvodina. The action was started by a company Euro Atlan-tic Corporation (EAC) from Bel-grade and the Princess Katherine Humanitarian Foundation and it was supported by the Ministry of Education, the Provincial Secreta-riat for Education, Administration and National Communities, Insti-tute for Public Health and local self-governments. The program’s goal is the prevention of ‘dirty hands’ disease and the acquisition of habits in conducting personal hygiene of students and children in schools and pre-school. In ad-dition, the project also aims at the education of target groups, chil-dren, parents and representatives of local communities.

Deputy of the provincial se-cretary for education, administra-tion and national communities Dr. Zoltan Jeges expressed his satis-faction with the conduction of this action, which was designed seve-ral years ago.

“Our secretariat supports such activities whose goal is to increase the health culture of our youth and to improve the prevention of infectious diseases in schools. We wanted to take preventive measu-res in forms of knowledge for the protection of students’ health in

elementary and high schools and enable them to adopt hygienic ha-bits and carry them over to their environment, which is important in health preservation”, Dr. Jeges

said and appealed to companies and individuals to participate in this action, in order to fulfill the goals more easily.

Aleksandra Petrovic from EAC company said that the role of this company is performed via do-nations of 10 000 Purell devices, devices for liquid soap, continued supply of gel, liquid soap, napkins, as well as educating students and children about the significance of hand hygiene

One of the friends of the ac-tion which deals with the increase of the level of hand hygiene and decrease of infectious diseases in schools is the company “Old Mo-untain Treasury” on whose behalf Andrija Stanulovic said: “We are a socially responsible company, which coordinated its principles with the principles of Euroatlan-tic. We work with a slogan: “Let’s protect life together” and I belie-ve that if we are taking care of the

pollution, water health and ani-mals, then it is logical to put the children in the first place. Our pro-ducts are characterized by a high percentage of plant extracts and in

some products that percentage is up to 96%.

We are very proud to be able to contrubite to such an action.“

Andrija said that “Old Moun-tain Treasury” at the beginning of action donated nearly a hundred litres of liquid soap and he expres-sed hope that the same amount will be far bigger in the next period.

The number of municipali-ties and companies which provi-ded support for the action “Hand Hygiene in Education” is bigger every day. The municipalities’ do-nations are only one source of do-nations for this action, so a signifi-cant contribution is expected from socially reponsible companies, do-mestic producers and parents.

Zita Farkaš

for all schools 10 000 devices were provided for all schools on the territory

of Serbia. Several thousand will be installed on the territory of AP Vojvodina. The project was initially intended for elementa-ry schools, and consequently for pre-schools and high schools. With the help of the project “Clean Hands of Our Children”, every school in Serbia will be equipped with the devices.

These devices are installed in places where children’s acti-vities are most frequent – in halls, in front of the kitchen and the dining room.

Besides the gel device for the disinfection of hands, schools will also be equipped with devices with liquid soap which comes out in form of foam, degradable toilet paper and napkins. What is interesting is that these devices cannot break, even when hit with a hammer, so if any child does not like them, he or she will not be able to destroy them.

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coMPuTeRs DonATeD To RuRAl AnD non-goVeRnMenTAl wOMeN’s AssOCIATIONs FROM vOJvOdINA

In June at the Assembly, the provincial secretary of labor, employment and gender equali-ty, Miroslav Vasin, received the representatives of thirty eight women’s associations, organi-zations, clubs and societies from the entire province in order to donate computers, as presents prepared for them by the Provin-cial Secretariat for Labor, Em-ployment and Gender Equality together with the Austrian Deve-lopment Agency ADA.

countryside preservation

According to Miroslav Va-sin, the formation of associa-tions and their successful work are one of the most important steps in fighting against leaving villages and for the preserva-tion of Vojvodina. Activism, projects and energy of the co-untryside women and their as-sociations should facilitate not just the preservation but also the transformation of Vojvodina countryside. The equipment do-nated should enable our mutual connection and awareness and in the next period it should help the preparation and realization of extremely important projects.

Thus, the computers and deve-lopment of electronic literacy, as well as training for European project writing and conducting were one of the priorities. 38 or-ganizations will obtain the com-puter equipment this time and in the last few months 47 television sets were donated, also in coope-ration with ADA.

health care in the countryside

Every village or group of villages will be provided with pediatrician and gynecologist, as well veterinarian clinic. A spe-cial store will be opened and its common framework will be es-tablished with the experience of great retail chains. Also, it was planned to create conditions for

better purchase and joint export of organic and other food and products into the EU countries.

support for Roma women

In increasing the level of visibility and affirmation of eco-nomic, entrepreneurial and so-cial position of women, one of the special tasks is the support for Roma, especially Roma wo-men, whose position is very dif-ficult. The director of the Roma Inclusion Office, Dusko Jova-novic, said that Roma women are doubly discriminated aga-inst – as women and especially as members of the community which is far from complete in-tegration in the society they live in. Thus, their organizations and all associations in which women provide additional possibilities for education, entrepreneurship development or improvement of the visibility of the discrimina-tion, lack of education and eco-nomic dependency are of great importance not only for rural and underdeveloped, but for all places in Vojvodina.

Dragana Dimitrov

Miroslav Vasin and Duško Jovanović

Secretary donating computer

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Roma from europe

RoMAnIes fRoM The PeRsPecTIVe of The DeVeloPMenT OF FORCed lABOR IN FORMeR CzeChOslOvAkIA

The situation was quite specific in Slovakia. At first, the camps were intended only for Germans and persons co-nvicted of the retribution folk courts, but the order of the Slovak National Council № 105/1945 Coll. z. also permit-ted the inclusion the people who „threaten the construction in the spirit of People’s State, intentionally hinder from the reconstruction of economic fa-cilities, manifest the state thin-king enemy, or encourage other persons to such attitude.” A special three-member commis-sion decided on the inclusion. That commission was created by the Commission of the Inte-rior, which could levy up to two years of hard labor. Soon, when communists took the power in the state, on 23rd March 1948

the Slovak National Council adopted the order № 7 / 1948 Coll. z. as well as the order of the Slovak National Council on the establishment of working bodies and the implementing regulation to the statutory stan-dards issued by the Board of Commissioners on 23rd April 1948 under № 18/1948 Coll.

The three-member com-mission at the Commission of the Interior decided on the inc-lusion of people again. As „lo-afers” and „disruptive persons”, who were interned in camps, have been identified persons and by the Act. of paragraph 2 were divided into four groups: antisocial elements, those refu-sing work, political opponents noticed by the security autho-rities or public and persons

convicted of price offences. Gradually, in the camps it has also started the change of social and ethnic structure of interned persons. Instead of Germans and Hungarians there began to prevail politically persecuted citizens and so-called antisocial elements, mostly Romanies.

According to V. Varinský the another reason leading to the emergence of labor camps „have been the effort to re-edu-cate socially and politically re-cusant people.” The hallmark of forced labor, even in this period was an attempt to justify the inclusion of the sentence to forced labor as a re-education by work. Among other things it confirms that restoration of for-ced labor in Slovakia after 1945 was at that time the product of thought prevailing after the war – the reorganization of demo-cracy in the socialist sense. In any case, even in this time the most expectations were put-ting to the economic benefit of re-education organized as fol-lows.

The combination of these two objectives, however, par-ticularly in the postwar period, due to the new organization of forced labor in the years 1945 – 1953, seemed to be extre-

During their history, Roma have experienced long and difficult periods of discrimination, isolation, life in isolation, concentration camps and prisons, convicted even when they were innocent. Vladimir Gecelovsky has collected and processed data about the life of Roma people on the territory of Czech Republic and Slo-vakia, particularly about the way certain laws applied to them, convicting them on forced labor. Despite the fact that in the years after the Second World War documents about human rights and freedoms were adopted, laws which enabled discrimination were still applied…


mely difficult. The re-educa-tion efforts were only platonic aspirations, so the main reason for building of work character enforcement equipments consi-sted of the efforts to solve the acute shortage of labor needed for the reconstruction of war-torn economy.

This is confirmed by the fact, that the extent and timing of recruitment to labor camps were organized according to the physical and temporal needs of the workforce. It should be added that in addition to these reasons, there was the effort of the ruling garniture „solve” the problems of Romanies though often it was the undemocratic way of the solution and in many cases of discrimination as evi-denced by numerous historical records. Of course, such solu-tions could not be successful and it was only the delay in so-lving the actual problems of Ro-manies. After the introduction

of Act № 247/1948 Coll. the orders of Slovak National Co-uncil were cance-led, but, however, in their work units the-re were constituted only renamed forced labor camps. Follo-wing the adoption of Act № 247/1948 Coll. on the forced labor camps, the exi-stence of work units lost the sense and at the end of 1948 there was the beginning of the preparations for a draft law to can-cel the work units and police surveil-lance. Transforming

the work units to forced-labor camps (TNP) also had to unify the different conditions in the Czech and Slovak countries and further extend the range of sentenced, who were including to labor camps.

conclusion

During this pe-riod the Universal Declaration of Hu-man Rights was ad-opted at the meeting of the III. General Assembly of the United Nations in the form of Resolution № 217/ A III of 10th December 1948. The Czechoslovak Re-public as one of the members of the Uni-ted Nations had also signed the Declara-tion. The declaration was issued as a UN

General Assembly resolution, which meant, that it is like a re-commendation and, therefore, it is not binding. Although the Universal Declaration of Hu-man Rights (UDHR) was proc-laimed as „common standard” – which should be achieved by all nations and states.

Its content began to be wi-dely recognized and had the binding character as legal or-dinance. It contents 30 articles, which include civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. However, the develop-ment of Czechoslovak legal system in this period did not respect not only this declara-tion, but even some forms of implementing the rights and freedoms have been considered to be a criminal offence.

To be continued...Vladimír Gecelovský

Source: authors archive

Roma from europe


eduCATed ROMA FAMIly JOvANOvIC

If our family does not sup-port us in education, we will have small chances of success. This is a story about a successful Roma girl from a big, educated family. For her and her brothers and si-sters, the support of their grand-father Tomislav was crucial. He was the one who instilled in them the wish to complete “great scho-ols”.

young successful Journalist

One day, she came from Ob-renovac to Novi Sad with her parents and grandfather to take the entrance exam at the Higher School of Professional Business Studies. It was not easy for her. She was afraid of the unknown city and people. She knocked on the door and found the support of Petar Novica Nikolic, editor of the Roma redaction RTV, who fights to help young people and provide

support for them. He helped her, directed her where needed and provided her with accommoda-tion, help and support.

She first came to Novi Sad as an insecure girl and now she is a successful woman. She gra-duated from the Higher School of Professional Business Studies and was proud of herself, but so-mething was still missing…

Even as a child, she wanted to be a journalist. Ten years ago, she participated in BBC school for Roma journalists in Saraje-vo; she completed the school of Journalists’ Association of Serbia and in 2004 she attended a semi-nar of DW Academy from Bonn, also for Roma journalists. She re-alized that journalism was what she wanted to do in life, because in that way she could show the other, prettier picture of Roma pe-ople. A few years ago, she passed

the trainee exam via the program “First Chance” and was admitted as a trainee in Roma redaction of Radio-television Vojvodina in the position of a journalist, where she still works.

Three generations of highly-educated Roma under

the same roof

Her grandfather graduated from Higher School of Medicine in 1969, but he had many diffi-culties until his graduation. He lived in difficult conditions and did not have enough money. He commuted thirty kilometers by bicycle… Hardworking and per-sistent, he finished school and got a job at the Institute for Blood Transfusion of Serbia, where he worked for thirty five years. He is retired now. His children and later his grandchildren inherited his knowledge and persistence.

Ružica in editorial office of RTV

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He had three sons; the oldest, Dragan, had worked as a car pa-inter and ten years ago he started his own business of purchasing iron, copper and other metals, which is then repurchased from him by larger companies and fac-tories. He hired ten Roma. The younger son, Ljubisa – Malja has been active for twenty years in the Humanitarian Center “Roma” in Obrenovac. He realized great projects, one of which was the introduction of water in Roma settlements located in bigger ci-ties in Serbia. The youngest Zla-

tomir is the director of the Roma radio “Roma” in Obrenovac. His

grandchildren Dejan and Danije-la Jovanovic finished music high school in Belgrade and Academy of Music in Berlin. Incidentally, Dejan is a multiple time champion of Serbia and plays accordion in classical music. He founded his own orchestra “Sae Rroma” with Roma musicians from several co-untries. Danijela plays the piano. Both of them are professors in a high school in Berlin. Daliborka graduated from a Higher School of Agriculture with an average grade 9.50. Bozidar graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, majoring in Management in Mass Media and at the Faculty of Po-litical Sciences he finished MA studies and acquired the title of a communicologist, MA. He won the OSCE scholarship at the be-ginning of schooling. Since 2007, he is professionally engaged in the promotion of the educational level of Roma; he worked on the program of the introduction of pedagogical assistants into the educational system of Serbia and on many others.

Ruzica is proud of her family and their success. She is aware of the fact that they would not have succeeded if there had not been for the support of grandfather To-mislav.

Dragana Dimitrov

successfull Roma

Grandfather Tomislav


culture

“I ThRew An APPle InTo The sToVe”“I threw an apple into the stove,

Don’t cry over me,I threw an apple into the stove,

Don’t cry over me.

I don’t want you, I don’t want you,Take a rope, hang yourself.”

The quoted lines are a part of a love poem “I threw an apple into the stove”, which belongs to the collec-tion of Roma epic-lyric poetry, both newly and early recorded (classification, theme, meaning), whose author is Marija Aleksandrovic, MA and whose title was taken from the abovementioned poem.

On the 8th of May, 2012 at the Institute for Culture of Vo-jvodina, the book “I threw an apple into the stove” by Marija Aleksandrovic was represen-ted to the public. The book was discussed by Ljiljana Pesikan Ljustanovic, Svenka Savic, Dra-gana Beleslijin and Aleksandra Djuric Bosnic. The event was attended by the representatives of the Provincial Secretariat for Education, Administration and National Communities, the Offi-ce for Roma Inclusion of AP Vo-jvodina and non-governmental

organizations. According to Ljiljana Pesi-

kan Ljustanovic, Marija Alek-sandrovic’s book is her great personal triumph and a result of hard work. No one can ob-ject to the fact that many things in life are learned and reached struggling in life with a gre-at commitment to the science. This book is very significant for both Roma community and majority population. No one can stay unharmed, if they do not have understanding for others, if they are not aware of the fact

that cultural differences do not mean good and bad cultures, but primarily fortune and a great advantage of this region. Roma culture is rich, but what can be best seen in these poems is the tight connection between Roma and Serbian culture. There is overlapping, taking over the mo-tives and meanings, and things which have been taken over are recognizable. The professor emphasized the importance of this. This book marks the begin-ning of scientific folklore. It can be a source of further analysis, triumph of the hard work on ra-ising young scholars. A commu-nity cannot be emancipated if it does not go for it on its own. The leaders of that emancipation in Roma community are precisely those young women who deci-ded to take life in their hands and to resist the always unfavo-rable patriarchal environment and to make something valuable in their lives.

“Marija Aleksandrovic’s book is a very important step in scholarly research and in the

The manipulation of the apple and its consequences suggest female love magic, directed towards refusing someone’s love. The apple, as a universal symbol of love union, is here being burnt, thrown into the stove, mud and bag – which means refusing love of an unwanted man. This is one of the literary facts, which can enrich our lives by introducing meanings of Roma poems into our everyday life.


classification and anthological-representative work on Roma oral lyric and lyric-epic poetry. By accepting a model that was adopted by her mentor Ljilja-na Pesikan Ljustanovic, Mari-ja Aleksandrovic analyzed and classified Roma poetry, even though it was not always easy, thus giving in Roma all variants she heard in the syncretic blend of music and songs, which only proves how good musicians Roma people are. One the one hand there was a blend of fiel-dwork and an attempt at clas-sification and on the other, the continuation of work started by Trifun Dimic and other antho-logists and representatives of Roma poetry. The work of Ma-rija Aleksandrovic is significant in several ways, because, beside contributing as a pioneer and so far the most important resear-cher of Roma poetry in the area of folklore, Marija Aleksandro-vic contributed to the research of ethnological and lexical ma-terial; she described numerous Roma customs and emphasized the figures of speech, Roma customs, their lifestyle, patriar-chal relations dominant within a community, but also the way

Roma people see themselves through songs. It is the right mo-ment for this book to be publi-shed and affirmed by a publisher such as the Institute for Culture of Vojvodina, which should pu-blish interculturality and the dia-logue between different nations, because a song is a fluctuating matter which changes and di-sappears in a certain moment, so every noting and analyzing gu-arantees that it will be recorded and that it will prolong its life” – these are the words of Dragana Beleslijin, a literary critic.

The book also reflects the work of young Roma resear-chers, participants in the project Epic-lyric Oral Poetry in Vojvo-dina, financed by the Provincial

Secretariat for Education and Culture and designed and con-ducted by Marija Aleksandrovic. The book represents hard work, done all around Vojvodina. The author concluded that the majo-rity of singers were not profes-sional musicians and she em-phasizes that meetings with the researchers were predominantly held in taverns, as original pla-ces of performing and handing down the songs. The reason for this is the fact that the commu-nity is closed for strangers, even for Roma researchers. The ma-jority of singers who preserved the songs were male, which the author sees as a preserved pa-triarchal community. The col-lection of poems consists of the previous researchers’ notes too, so the book represents a specific homage to previous researchers and interpreters of these songs, especially to the deceased Trifun Dimic.

The book promotion was enriched by a string orchestra of a tavern “Gipsy Dawn” from Novi Sad, which performed the songs from the collection.

Snežana Dimić

Marija Aleksandrovic (1972, Novi Sad) received the degree of MA of literary studies after defending her thesis Roma Epic-lyric Poetry – Old and New Records (classification, themes, meaning) at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad. She works in the Pre-school Teacher Training College “Mihailo Palov” in Vrsac, where she teaches the Roma language. She participated in numerous se-minars concerned with the Roma language and culture – among other things, she finished the course Romology 1, initiated by the Women’s Studies and Research and the University of Novi Sad, the Faculty of Philosophy respectively. She was a co-author in many publications in the area of the Roma culture. Her doctoral disserta-tion which she will defend in the future is named The Symbols of Roma Oral Poetry – Representation and Meaning.

culture


culture

unDeR-RePResenTATIon of PooR PeoPle In The MeDIA Results of a research dealing with the media reports on poverty and social exclusion were presented

at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad. Students, professors and scholars from several universities of the countries in this region analyzed the role and attitude of the media, as those who should monitor, note and indicate all social phenomena, but also invite the public to take more part in the solution of problems. Do the media really perform that role? In this magazine we will give you the opinions of the important participants of the conference.

Prof. Dr. Dubravka Valic Nedeljkovic said that the fa-culty dealt with social research, that it started public dialogues on important topics of public interest. She added: “I will re-mind you that, beside the media studies, there are departments of sociology, philosophy, hen-ce all the disciplines which analyze social issues. So it is not unusual that for the second year the department of the me-dia studies got an international project of the foundation RRPP, which supports young resear-chers, and it is financed by the Government of Switzerland; it analyzes how the media report on poverty and social exclu-sion.

Why is that an important question? Because the results indicated that the media do not

report in the way that informs about people who live in po-verty, but in the way that shows only numbers. “The percen-tage of this, the percentage of that…” So, we do not recogni-ze the people there, we see only numbers. We analyzed radio, television and printed media on local, provincial and natio-nal levels and concluded that the media did not start a single debate to impact the people in charge to fight against poverty; what’s more, Serbia even ad-opted the Strategy for fighting against poverty. This year we searched the Internet for data to see how and if users react to te-xts of online magazines which talk about poverty and social exclusion, to realize if there is any public opinion formed in this cyber space, time, if pe-

ople discuss and have debates on this extremely important qu-estion. And – we realized that there were no discussions. Only comments about authors, the content of texts, but almost no one talked about their personal experience, initiatives, no one started a discussion and became part of the community which looks for solutions.

Ognjen Radovic from Ban-ja Luka emphasized the fol-lowing: “We took a pretty big sample, processed TV emitters in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two public and four private media, all of them leading media. The results were disappointing – so-cially excluded groups are un-der-represented in the media re-ports. This particularly applies to people of different sexual orientation, but also national minorities, who are represented through stereotypes.”

Considering the fact that the media write a lot about po-verty, we found out the answer to the question – what is the ac-tual use of these researches and the true importance of young people taking part in them?

“We need researches, when we know about the current world economic crisis, which affected all countries in the re-gion and which is not going to be easy to overcome, and on the other hand, the role of the media is important in reporting

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about poverty and social exc-lusion, which pose a problem for these people, regardless of their religion, nation, any other characteristics. So, poverty is a problem of us all.

The media have a very im-portant role in fighting against poverty. Not just in our country, but in the entire region. So, wi-thout the help of the media and public support it is impossible to discuss social aspects of the problem of poverty. The Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad has an important role in strengthe-ning our awareness about the need to fight poverty and one of the basic conditions for that is education. When you do not have education and educated people, you will not have fight against poverty. Without rese-arch, there is no real, scientific approach to the problem. That is why we did a research, so that people, who are information consumers, watchers, listeners, readers can see the problem of poverty and see whose fault it is – if it is the fault of political centers, economic centers etc. It’s a very interesting research and I think that after this con-ference we will have answers to certain questions”, the repre-sentative of Bosnia and Herze-govina said.

Ankica Dragin from the office of the provincial ombud-sman said in her presentation that poverty as a social pheno-menon is multilayered, which was confirmed by numerous re-searches presented at the confe-rence, and from that aspect, con-flict as a phenomenon, which can be more or less obvious, should also be discussed in the context of poverty.” There are few opportunities to talk about poverty as a social phenomenon and to analyze it as our social characteristic. Unfortunately, my colleagues and I concluded that research and experience, both professional and personal, confirmed that poverty is some-thing which is seen as normal in our society. It is little discussed, and there is even impression that people are afraid to discuss it”, she said.

Prof. Dr. Ivana Zivance-vic-Sekerus from the Facul-ty of Philosophy in Novi Sad said: “Thanks to our youngest department, which is the most dynamic, the department of the media studies, we cover such, unfortunately, current topics – poverty and social exclusion. This was the second time such conference was held at the Fa-culty of Philosophy with the colleagues from the region. We

understand that we are almost all poor, but we do not easi-ly put a face on that poverty. Why aren’t there more specific reports on poverty? Because poverty is, I’m afraid, a taboo. It is something we do not talk about easily and that is why we talk impersonally, in numbers. It would be much better if our colleagues and we, so to say, produced newspaper reporters who would change that media discourse. It would be much better if poverty got a name and surname. This is only a dialogue of Europe and Balkan, because the project from which the con-ference was derived was sup-ported by European financial efforts. Unfortunately, poverty is a topic of the 21st century. It is absurd that in the time of such technology development, when we live longer and have better treatment, everything looks better in average, but in a small example, an individu-al one, we see that people live worse. That’s what’s tragic. So, in the 21st century we will still be dealing with the topic of poverty. But we will also deal with the aspect of noting and reporting in the media – if the media report about the reasons, causes and consequences of po-verty. I said that the total pover-ty was something we no longer even talked about. Now we do not have anything to eat and no-where to sleep, but in the long run, the consequences of spiri-tual poverty will be worse than having nothing to eat. That’s my opinion.”

Zita Farkaš

“We think that the worst thing is that the media rarely turns to the ones who are vulnerable, so only state and insti-tutions, which should deal with them, talk about them”, said Jelena Kleut, MA.

Prof. Dr Ivana Zivancevic-Sekerus made an observation about how we are almost all poor, but we do not easily put a face on that poverty. “Why aren’t there more specific reports on poverty? Because poverty is, I’m afraid, a taboo. It is so-mething we do not talk about easily and that is why we talk impersonally, in numbers”, she noted.

culture

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