Posts Tagged ‘Seminar Roma’

On 10 November 2010, on the occasion of the opening of the XXVII Assembly of the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI), Cittalia and COSES held in Padua a seminar on the participation and non-discrimination of Roma entitled: “Local Authorities and the Roma: Respect, Participation and Promotion of the Civil Rights of Minorities.”
The theme of the seminar was introduced by the Secretary-General of Cittalia, Pierciro Galeone, who highlighted how European countries today, despite their civil and democratic progress, are not yet able to effectively and completely protect the minorities living within their borders and to completely prevent them from incidents and episodes of discrimination. It is the paradox of the Western civilization, which struggles to find effective ways to manage the issue – coming from afar – of ethnic fragmentation and protection of the civil rights of minorities.
Fabio Verlato, Deputy Mayor (Social Policies) of the City of Padua, outlined the experience of the city of Padua in order to foster better living conditions for Roma people – largely present on its territory – by promoting the transition “from the Gypsy camps to the city” through a re-thinking and redevelopment of space (spatial planning), the scaling of degraded areas and the creation of adequate housing units.
Sandra Rainero, manager of special projects of Veneto Lavoro, coordinator of ENSA (European Network of Social Authorities) and communication manager of +RESPECT, outlined the main features of the project and the fundamental concepts upon which it is built: European interest, multi-level governance, multi-stakeholders approach, bottom-up methodology which aims to involve the local actors interested in the topic of anti-discrimination and participation of Roma people in civil and democratic life.
Stefania Bragato from COSES – Training and Research Centre of the City and Province of Venice, presented the +RESPECT Report “Combating Anti-Roma Discrimination: Knowledge and Policies” edited and published in the framework of the project (http://www.morespect.eu/en2/2010/11/311/), that brings together good practices on the inclusion of Roma and non-discrimination, recommendations and methodological notes on the different experiences of collection of data on Roma anti-discrimination in the European countries involved in the project.
The main difficulties related to the Roma issue in Italy and particularly in the city of Rome have been displayed by Enrico Serpieri, field expert of +RESPECT and member of the Cabinet of the President of the Province of Rome, who has reviewed the issue of housing and the errors made in the past in Italy in the management of migration flows and of the Roma phenomenon.
Alvaro Ancisi, Vice President of ANCI-National Association of Italian Municipalities and member of the Committee of the Regions, reported on the discussion paper “The Social and Economic Integration of Roma in the European Union” – that he presented at the Committee of the Regions in Brussels – and addressed the issue of the role of local authorities in relation to the issue of combating discrimination against Roma.
The final debate was also attended and actively participated by the Mayor of the city of Pisa, Marco Filippeschi, who described the experience of his city and its efforts to improve the living conditions and foster inclusion of Roma people, and by Carlo Berini, President of the Sucar Drom Association, who underlined that despite the efforts of many “forefront” municipalities to improve the Roma situation, the issue is still there and in Italy, in particular, it is necessary to develop a framework of systematic interventions in order to improve not only the life conditions of Roma people, but also their active involvement in civil democratic processes. The meeting addressed also the issue of the correct information on Roma: too often the Media are responsible for misleading interpretations concerning the Roma people, feeding stereotypes and discrimination actitude. The meeting was chaired by Gabriele Guazzo, Cittalia, + RESPECT Project Coordinator.  The Padua seminar was participated by around 40 participants, including representatives from local authorities, practitioners and journalists. The +RESPECT travelling stand was displayed on the occasion of the event.

The workshop held in Padua represented a good occasion to target city administrators. The meeting highlighted some important aspects that were also encountered in other +Respect workshops. As far as the Italian situation is concerned, some cities have proved to be proactive and committed to find solutions to the problems of the Roma communities in the fields of housing (there are many examples of self-building initiatives, micro-areas etc. implemented by municipalities in Italy), healthcare, employment and schooling, however the participation of Roma people to civil democracy processes is still far to be achieved for different reasons:
- lack of knowledge about the Roma people culture, history and lifestyle in many municipalities
- lack of resources for the municipalities to be spent for integration / inclusion purposes: where and when cities could benefit from specific money transfers, they were able to start positive processes of integration and participation of the Roma communities living within their boundaries.  
- lack of a clear national framework / national strategy for the integration of Roma people: Italy lacks a real national plan so the initiatives of the cities, although important and effective, suffer from a lack of coordination. On the other side, however, the living conditions of the Roma are very different from city to city and this circumstance requires also flexibility and a certain degree of autonomy of the cities.
- lack of recognition of rights of citizenship: many Roma people living in Italy since two or three generations still don’t have the Italian citizenship. In some cases, having lost their previous citizenship (for example, in the case of some Roma people who escaped from the war in former Yugoslavia) , they do not have any citizenship at all.
- lack of a widespread culture and mentality that sees the Roma as part of the solution, not as part of the problem: in order to foster real participation, Roma people must be involved actively in the initiatives implemented locally, not only in the execution / implementation of a specific project, but from the very beginning, that is from the planning and draft of the objectives, methods and activities in coordination with city officers and other local stakeholders.
- a multidimensional set of stakeholders is required in order to activate positive integration and participation paths at local level: the city must collaborate with the associations, must be able to communicate what it’s doing to the citizens and must include in this process the Roma communities in order to be successful.

Download here the agenda of the WP3.1-WP3.2-WP3.3 workshop: Programma_Padova_10_11_10_Respect