JOURNALIST MEETING

Campaign “The key is your hands”

Education is a key towards integration and prosperity

Media strategy

I am Roma! When this is heard, on every non Roma come to mind many negative things aboit it. He’s a Gipsy! He’s a begger! Illiterate, dirty, steals, A man who is laughed at, discriminated and not enough involved in the socio-economic process in the state. Who put this negative opinion for this nation, since when does it exist, we do not want to know, but the hardest thing is that it still does. one of the most common sentences the parents use to scare thier children is:

Sit still! A Gipsy will come to take you away!

The focus of our work is the way of media representation and reporting about the Roma as an ethnic group.

If the media are considered as one of the great moving forces, which influence on the changes in the country and to the co-life of every nationality in it we wonder: In what way they report about the Roma? Do they report objectivly? Do they report enough about the Roma problematic?

The main task of the means for massive informing in a multicultural society is to transfer the image for some event of public interest, which deserves public attention. The media conscientiously or not, does not pay attention of the aspect of the diversity of the group for which is reporting, and can cause a wrong approach or informing or negative effect with the viewers or readers. Most common media reporting about the Roma in the country is some top story which informs about the negative side of the Roma. The images of the Roma settlement are a symbol for poverty. The Roma are shown on TV looking for food in thrash cants. One time on the TV a Macedonian woman was shown selling croissants and talking about poverty and at the same time images of Roma picking food from thrash cants were shown.

This kind of way of informing points out on not enough developed world and responsability which needs to be felt by every public media which has even the slightest influence in creating of a public opinion. This way of serving information, causes negative effects, which are only partially invisible.

We appeal to every public organs to inform us about the Roma and the problems they are facing. Inform with truth and with impartiality. When informing do not comment. Do not encourage discrimination and prejudice. Respect the presumption for inocence. Do not report the name of the minor person who has performed a criminal act.

Informing about the Roma and education

The future and the prosperity of the Roma population in Macedonia is education. We are working to encourage the Roma child to go to school. We are working on increasing of the educational cadre with the Roma. We are fighting with all the means at our disposal in order for the children to see the meaning of education, to know that education is a key which opens the door to the future, and brings the Roma closer towards the standards of the European Union and wider.

The media and the journalists which work in it are one of the main fatctors who with certainity would be of great significance, if they report about the Roma.

Here are some sugestiones for reporting about the Roma and education.

– Themes to encourage the Roma child to enroll in school

Our research which we made in Kumanovo, Prilep and Skopje have shown that last year from 585 Roma children who were supposed to be enrolled in first grade, only 145 got enrolled. So we beleive with your help, that is with writting for some Roma child, who alreday goes to school and it is an excelent pupil as well the support from its parents would be of great help to encourage the other Roma children to go to school and at the same time for the parents to let their children to get educated.

– Education and its meaning

Reporting about sucssefull Roma, Roma with high education. Preparing of interviews for sucssefull Roma buisnismen, as well as thier media coverage. With all of the above mentioned examples, we beleive that the interest of the Roma children to finish elementary, high school and high education would be increased.

– Reporting about poverty and education

Poverty is one of the main factors for the small number of Roma children who go to school. Many Roma organisations are working on this problematic, which provide the children the most basic school materials and books, provide scholarships for Roma who go to high school and students. With informing about the work of the NGOs and thier locations, many Roma will be informed, whose children visit classes.

– Teacher please do not discriminate me

The number of Roma children who are discriminated by their teachers and professors is great. These kind of reports from the pupils are more and more common. Work on a case like that, inform the public if a teacher or a professor discriminates a Roma child, and beleive us that something like that will not happen.

– Friend I am just like you

It would be of great help if we are informing about a Roma child who has a Macedonian friend, who sit at the same bench at school. We say this because a lot of Roma children are maltreated by their classmates; they do not spend time with the Roma children and are embarrassed to share the school bench.

The Roma and the real image about them

It is well known to the public that many pictures in newspapers, many frames in informative programs, as well as documentary films and movies, show only the negative image about the Roma. They are represented as thieves, beggers, people who do not care abiout their hygiene, musicians, fortune tellers and as people who look thorugh thrash cants and unconcience citizens who diturb the pice of the “concience” ones.

Roma are thieves and steal?

Many roma earn their own living in an honest way. They are labourers, craftmen, blacsmiths, shoe makers. Why doesn’t someone make a reportage about a working day of a Roma. For his troubles which start at 5 am, untill its dark. Why the public does not know that blacsmithing with the Roma is an old trade. Even in the time of Alexander the Great, the Roma blacksmiths were the most famous. Not only the roma are dirty, they are not the only ones who beg. In that way only the habits and the opinions about the Roma that “the Gypsi is the worst man on the planet” will change.

Roma picking up from thrash cants are enviornamentalists

Every one complains that the Roma are looking through the thrash cants, breaking them and throw the garbage on the streets. On a similar way the media report about the Roma. Just think about it and you will come to ralize a very good idea. Who collects boxes and papers from thrashcants. The answer is the Roma, and this quite ecolocigal, they sell them and earn money. Who collects plastic and old iron which later they sell on the local junkyards. So now do you beleive that the Roma steal and throw around garbage? They are the main mechanism for recycling in the state. The public is not aware about this, so inform them about it.

Stereotypes

The Roma are thieves or beggers is a stereotype, which is dominating in Macedonia and abroad. The distorted media image about them is more than obvious and that is realyy happening. The Roma are a media simbol for crime, poverty and non hygiene and uneducattion. Without entering in the true problematic of the Roma population, without knowing about their troubles, they are represented as the lowest class in our society. So we propose to consider the condition of the Roma well enough and then report about them, and represent them equally as the other minorities who live in Macedonia.

Respected media and journalists, if we sucseed together to accept some of the ideas mentioned above, we beleive that mant things will change about reporting and media coverage of the Roma problematic and colife with all of the nationalities who live in Macedonia.