Roma are European citizens. By law they share the same rights and duties as all their fellow citizens. Nevertheless, Roma face a continuous structural discrimination and marginalization, prejudices and stereotypes are widely spread and remain often unquestioned in the media, in politics and in society. According to the ERGO Network, stigmatization of Roma and “anti-Gypsyism” are one of the main root causes of their social exclusion.

Meeting in Sofia

Roma are not accepted as equal citizens, and are refused one of the universal human rights, namely the right to a dignified and worthy life. They are often perceived as untrustworthy, ungrateful and undeserving sub-citizens who are inactive and incapable and who deserve to be denied equal social, economic and political rights. The exclusionary mechanism based on stigmatization in education, employment and health care, among other fields, results in a reinforced assimilation of Roma, perceiving them as strangers in their own societies. Internalizing these stigmata and negative images of themselves, many Roma accept them as normal, reproduce these stereotypes of the majority and are afraid to identify themselves as Roma. Especially young people struggle with their self-identification accepting their ethnicity and finding a respected place in society.
Roma and non-Roma should both take their responsibilities and duties as equal and active citizens in ONE society to create mutual trust and respect for diversity and to fight discrimination and stigmatization. StrRoma?” iving for a better life for ALL in ONE society, we have to stress the fact that Roma are NOT the problem, but their marginalization, discrimination and their bad social situation are the problem. Therefore, we have to address the root causes of their social exclusion: stigmatization and stereotypes.
Typical Roma? is an international campaign which addresses stigmatization and stereotypes as root causes of social exclusion of Roma. The campaign raises the awareness for active citizenship of ALL in ONE society and intends to promote a positive image of Roma.
From November 25th to 27th, twelve international campaigners from Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Germany and The Netherlands came together in Veles, Macedonia, to discuss the planning and the proceedings of this campaign, which is coordinated by ERGO and supported by SPOLU.
25 participants from Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Moldova and Romania came together from January 13th - 17th, 2010 in Sofia for an international training-course, in order that people can experience directly the philosophy, development and potential of creative campaign methods focusing on a grassroots level. One of the main objectives of the campaign is to strengthen the capacity of the ERGO members in campaigning. Therefore, the training-course intends to support the learning process of volunteers and campaign coordinators regarding creative campaign methods and actions with a grassroots component which can be directly realized in practice in February and March this year.
This European campaign that will be realized in Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Moldova and between November 2009 and April 2010 is dedicated to the awareness-raising about stereotypes and prejudices and to strengthening the common efforts of Roma and non-Roma to fight against discrimination, and to develop and promote a common European vision of diversity. At the same time the campaign will address the grassroots demands during the 2nd European Roma Summit on April 8th, 2010 in Cordoba, Spain, facilitating a mutual chain of information between the local and international levels.
Furthermore, the campaign is a useful learning process in itself for the participating ERGO members.
The campaign consists of four main phases, which will all be streamlined as much as possible between the different participating countries: The first phase (Nov 2009 – Jan 2010) is dedicated to research aimed at identifying and analyzing the key elements of stigmatization and exclusionary mechanisms. In a second phase (Jan – Feb 2010), the campaign will be publicly launched through press events. Further, new and innovative methods will be developed in order to visualize this information and make it accessible to a broad public on national and European level. In February-March 2010 concrete campaign actions will be realized on local, national and international level. The research, methods, demands and achievements will be presented as a source of information and best practice during 2nd European Roma Summit in Spain.

–by Ognyan Isaev