Roma women from all over Europe need a sorority network that allows them to become a voice in their community and a motor of change. The project is relevant as it aims to promote equality and combat discrimination on the grounds of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, age, socioeconomic and educational background, of Roma Women respecting the principle of non-discrimination on the grounds provided for in Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Roma Women suffer multiple discrimination based on all these levels It is also based on the principle of gender mainstreaming, making women the drivers of the project. The project intends to provide an intersectional and bottom-up approach to prevent and fight against intolerance, racism, xenophobia, and discrimination, online and offline.
The project addresses Priority 1: Fighting against intolerance, racism, xenophobia, discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes. The ROMA CONNECT project aims to provide a response to antigypsyism, following the recommendations of the EU Roma strategic framework on equality, inclusion and participation. It will work with Roma grassroots women, a highly vulnerable group to discrimination and marginalization.
The ROMA CONNECT project It intends to foster rights awareness through capacity-building activities and trainings. All of these conclusions will be integrated into a public campaign that reaches the local, national and European levels. The target group supported in the project is grassroots Roma women: Roma women without a high educational level that participate in activism activities. We have chosen to focus on them as they suffer triple discrimination: because they are women (sexism), because they are Roma (racism and antigypsyism) and due to the fact of not being able to access certain educational spaces. Finally, we have decided to focus on them because of the political potential that a Roma women’s network at European level can have. Seeing women who have been denied certain decision-making spaces actively participating in a political and activist network will have a triggering effect on Roma girls and on the whole community.
The main general objective of the project is to empower and support the capacity and role of community leaders, grass-roots Roma women, in order to address antigypsyism through a public campaign. To achieve this, we will use an intersectional and bottom-up approach. Roma women, who are the leaders of their communities and families, will be in charge of the content and activities of the project. The specific objectives of the project are the following:
- To foster rights awareness of the grassroots Roma women, through capacity-building activities. This will have an impact beyond the women involved in the activities of the project, as it will also affect their families, loved-ones and communities. This will be achieved through trainings on topics such as Public Narratives or European and national legislation against racism.
- To build trust between the Roma and Non-Roma communities. The history of marginalisation to which the Roma community has been subjected has led to a series of prejudices and stereotypes towards them. Our aim is to promote the eradication of such prejudices in order to build a more egalitarian and fairer society. This will be achieved through a public campaign. Within this, each partner will hold 4 intercultural workshops with the non-Roma community in their areas.
- To have an institutional impact, both at the local, national (of all the countries that make up the consortium) and European levels.
This project is financed by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV), founded by the European Commission.