Roma Gadje Initiative - Dialogue through Voluntary Service
About 18 international voluntary services and Roma-initiatives operate under the name ‘Roma-Gadje Initiative – Dialogue through Service’ throughout Europe and the US. Their goal is to promote the dialogue between Roma and Gadje (Romani colloquial expression for the non-Roma) to improve the situation of Roma in Europe.
Within the framework of this project, Gadje volunteers complete a one-year voluntary service in Romani communities and projects alongside Roma and for the benefit of Roma. The idea is to accomplish the tasks at hand together with the Roma instead of just doing it for them. Placements, for the most part, are schools, dormitories and community centers for Roma children and youth or Roma organizations. The volunteers work in pairs and together with Roma volunteers.
The German volunteers are usually part of the regular program of DJiA (Diaconal Year Abroad). In additional Roma-Gadje seminars, they have the opportunity to discuss subjects such as education, history and Roma identity with other volunteers and with Roma and to share their experiences with each other.
After their voluntary service, former volunteers often help to promote a political awareness in their native countries in the form of education policy measures. The initiative offers the opportunity for Roma to get to know different forms of social commitment outside their own communities such as voluntary services, conferences, training measures and other forms of exchanges.
The aim is to equip Roma individuals with certain skills that may then be imparted within the Romani communities. Moreover, the contact to other Roma projects and people active in this field should hence be established. The Gadje volunteers through their service are to show solidarity with the Roma in their current situation and learn from them in order to thus be able to offer effective help. The voluntary service among Roma is a possibility to start a dialogue between Roma and non-Roma in a very tangible and practical way.
Facts and Realities
The Situation of Roma in Europe
In Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, there are about 5.000.000 Roma (gypsies) altogether. Their living conditions seem closer to African standards than to the European ones…
- One out of six Roma is ‘always hungry’.
- More than half of the population has to go a few days without food per year.
- One out of three Roma children has not graduated from primary school.
- Only 20 % of the Roma have work, another 20 % work under the table.
- In some countries, up to 70 % of the Roma households are on welfare.
(source: “Avoiding the Dependency Trap – A Human Development Report on the Roma Minority in Central & Eastern Europe” – UNDP)
Relations between Roma and non-Roma
Across Europe, Roma have suffered persecution, harassment and neglect. Many have been killed. There is the need to acknowledge this history still alive in the thoughts of Roma and other European peoples. We have to enter an honest dialogue. European peoples have to acknowledge what they have done wrong in the past. The churches have also been a part of this racism: In many countries, they have excluded Roma from church services, the sacraments and church weddings. The churches and the Council of European Churches should recognize their own wrongdoings with the Roma and plead guilty for the injustices done by them. This kind of remorse could open new possibilities for reconciliation and for new honest encounters. (source: “Council of European Churches – CCME joint declaration Bratislava 2001”)
Based on this situation, in 1999 the Roma-Gadje Initiative – Dialogue through Voluntary Service was founded. See also www.rgdts.net
Videos about the subject of barriers / prejudices
1. On the street interviews
Video on YouTube. See Film.
2. Kosice - school for handicapped children
Video on YouTube. See Film.
