What I found after the tunnel
In
Nadezhda there are not playgrounds but children willing build them
up. As an alternative, they are using a steep ramp inside a tunnel
- the
one they should cross everyday on their way back from school. Built
under the railways, this narrow and yellow corridor is the entrance
and exit passage to two entirely different realities: the Tsigani and
the white Bulgarians’ one.
This is the story of the Roma Neighborhood in Sliven, one of the
cities with the highest Roma Population in Bulgaria.
 |
| Tunnel to Nadezhda |
When we arrived to
Nadezhda´s doors I didn´t even notice we were there. This huge Roma
Settlement starts behind the red building of the train station in
Sliven, and when the train reaches this stop the neighborhood
disappears. It is like a curtain made of wagons which hides for a
couple of minutes every two or three hours one of the biggest Gipsy
ghettos in Bulgaria.
During my visit to
Nadezhda my Polish friend and I were guided by Stefan and Dorothea.
Two of the workers of Thirst for Life Association, an NGO founded in
2005, with the main aim
of empowering young Roma with risk behavior to exercise their
constitutional right of equal access to health and health care.
The neighbors
According to the last
official census, Nadezhda is inhabited by approximately 33.000
people. However, this figure is probably not realistic as from the
time the registration was made, Stefan told me that around 10.000
people have emigrated to other countries in Europe searching for a
job. Actually, this is one
of the undercover reasons of the refusal of France, Germany and The
Netherlands for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen
area.
Nevertheless, regarding Roma community,
most of the population censuses are not reliable at all, due either
to migrations or to the fact that a considerable amount of people
don't want to say they are Roma due to the discrimination and
prejudice they suffer. This lack of information related to Roma
figures is more important as it seems because it influences (or at
least it should)
the policies and funds intended to their integration. In Bulgaria, as
reported by different NGOs, the number of those perceived as Roma
varies from 700.000 to 800.000 people2.
88% of them are at risk of poverty, 72 % live in areas that are
predominantly inhabited by other Roma, and more than a half in
illegal housing3.
Although Bulgaria is one of the signatory states of the Decade of
Roma inclusion 2005-20154,
the country presents the highest rate of spatial segregation of Roma
among EU member states5.
Nadezhda is an example of it.
Walnut ghetto
Regarding to jobs, Roma keep facing huge
doses of discrimination almost everywhere in Europe. This is
certainly a thing that you can smell in Nadezhda. In the central
square of the settlement, the owner of a van turned into a coffee bar
with the sign “Refrescos” on the top, tells me in perfect Spanish
that unemployment there affects the majority of people at working
age, which is unbearable.
“Listen, we are gypsies, you know? And
here, in Sliven, if in a job interview they understand that you are
living in Nadezhda,
no way. Hard to be selected”. This man in his sixties has been
living in Murcia for 13 years, working as chauffeur. At the
beginning he didn´t look like willing to talk to us, but eventually
he moved his chair to our table to finish drinking his coffee in
front of me. In a Bulgarian-Spanish-English-Russian language
conversation (depending on which of us took the floor) he explained
that unemployment allowance for them usually consists of 20 Leva and
14 days of communitarian/cleaning works. “Not enough. We are
screwed. During the communist time we used to have different
factories in Sliven. There was work, but not any more¨. The lack of
access to the labour market is common among Roma living in Central
and Eastern Europe, who are generally unemployed and face substantial
structural and cultural barriers when looking for a paid job6.
Thus, Roma
involvement in the informal sector is on average four or five times
more common than for non Roma7.
The image of these two facts are the
“walnut ghettos”.
Leaving the central square to enter deeper in the settlement, there
are people cracking walnuts in almost every corner. With more than a
60% of jobless, they
are using self- employment
as a brave response to discrimination.
 |
| Map of Sliven |
School desegregation
I visited Dorothea´s house and Stefan’s
mother, grandmother and aunt. We shake hands with a big smile.
Family. This word is really important in Nadezhda
and its meaning is different than in the rest of Sliven. Roma
Families are frequently bigger and younger than white Bulgarian ones,
and they include more children. I saw a lot them in Nadezhda.
Stefan says that here is common to get pregnant at the age of 15, 16.
Someone tells me that once they give birth, parents are receiving a monthly benefit from
the State consisting of 37 Leva per kid, which last till children
reach the age of 18, as long as they are attending school. Education
is another hot topic in Roma community. On
average, only one out of two Roma children attends pre-school or
kindergarten8,
and there is a high rate of school drop-outs among them. In numbers,
44% of Roma have basic education in Bulgaria, with 20 % of Roma not
even completing primary level education, and therefore, just 0,3% of
Roma undertaking higher education9.
In this field it is important to highlight as well, the trend to
educate Roma children in segregated schools or in schools located in
rural areas, where the quality of education
is lower than in the mainstream schools. It means ghettoization and
future barriers which are affecting nowadays to the 75% of Roma
children10.
 |
| A steep ramp inside the tunnel |
Everybody´s place
We keep walking. People greet me with
smiles and curiosity. Everybody greets each other and every so often
someone surprises me with one “Hola España!” A lot of them can
speak Spanish. Stefan told me that an 80 % of the population in
Nadezhda can,
although for me, this might be a bit optimistic percentage. In
Nadezhda public
space is public for real. You can feel it: we are now in everybody´s
place. Woman, men and children are standing in the door of their
houses talking to each other, saying hello to the strollers,
working...Some people are cleaning their pig in the middle of the
street. A man is fixing a bicycle. Others are remodelling their
houses. The streets of this part of the settlement are clean. They
have rubbish collection service as well as electricity and water,
though the last one with restrictions. Children are playing freely in
the middle of the path. Music. Nadezhda
exudes life and people.
Prayers and votes
I meet the Evangelist priest who comes
from the city. He talks with his priest voice something in Bulgarian
to Dorothea I cannot understand. In Nadezhda
you can find all the
religions, despite not counting with any temple within its walls. In
Bulgaria, 44% of the Roma are Orthodox, 39% Muslims, 15% Protestants
and less than 1% Catholics11.
This morning I
encountered as well one of the representatives of the local authority
of the settlement.
I take advantage of
the meeting to ask Stefan if in Nadezhda there is any kind of
political activism, neighbors’ associations, etc. The answer is no.
In Bulgaria, Roma Community presence in the politic world is almost
nonexistent. They are basically a tool for politicians. Bulgarian
political leaders are following a double manipulation strategy
related with Roma. On the one hand they are exploiting them to get
their votes, sometimes by buying them, and on the other hand they are
using them as a fall guy of economic and social problems.
Community Health Centre
Nadezhda’s
Community Health Centre is
a humble building in whose doors people crowd queuing. Most of them
are men with children. Dorothea knows almost everybody. Her work in
the association consists on the prevention and detection of
tuberculosis among the neighbours. This illness in from 2 to 5 times
more common between Roma than between ethnic Bulgarians12.
Apart from this, life expectancy for
Roma is in general 8-15 years lower than other Bulgarians, and child
mortality rates are almost three times higher. All this figures are
the result of several factors such as the isolation they suffer, the
poor living conditions in the ghetto, the lack of health education
and preventive health care, and the administrative barriers and
discrimination in the access to medical care. Specifically in
Bulgaria, approximately half of the Roma population don't have health
insurance as a result of unemployment and poverty, and 55% have
difficulty accessing doctors13.
Ghetto inside a
ghetto
Turning left from the Community Health Center, the streets start to be darker and sadder. Actually this is the
saddest part of the article, of Nadezhda and probably of Europe.
A
ghetto inside a ghetto. A forgotten area which, actually, you can
find in almost every country. Here, the streets are not paved and the
rubbish collection is not working. Garbage piles up almost everywhere
and the smell is terrible. Four children aged between 2 and 6 years
stir a mixture which looks
like concrete. Houses are crumbling what allows me to see the
interior of almost every one of them.
Old and tiny clothes hanging here and
there and hundreds of kids. As we are going into this zone I cannot
stop wondering how this is possible. How European Union and its
States and its citizens (all of us very modern and committed to human
rights) can bare this situation. How can WE bare this situation?
Where are our priorities? Thirst for Life Association and another French NGO
whose name Stefan couldn’t remember are the only organizations
working here.
I leave the settlement reflecting of the
repercussions of being born in one or in another side of the railway.
The tunnel is now full of children running with their bagpacks. I
think back all I saw this morning. The conclusion is definitely
positive. Nadezhda, despite its difficulties and somehow because of
them, is full of life and future, and we cannot let prejudice and
discrimination deny them. Europe has much to learn from its citizens
who invent slides and combat unemployment by cracking walnuts. Such
important things as not give up and always look for alternatives.
 |
| Yellow corridor to a different reality |
2
NATIONAL
DELIVERATIVE POLL: Policies toward the Roma in Bulgaria
3 European
Country of Origin Information Network: Bulgaria:
Situation of Roma, including access to employment, housing, health
care, and education; state efforts to improve the conditions of Roma
(2009-September 2012) [BGR104200.E]
5
European
Country of Origin Information Network: Bulgaria:
Situation of Roma, including access to employment, housing, health
care, and education; state efforts to improve the conditions of Roma
(2009-September 2012) [BGR104200.E]
6 ROMA
IN EUROPE: Issues and policy responses
7 UNDP
Data on Roma
http://europeandcis.undp.org/data/show/D69F01FE-F203-1EE9-B45121B12A557E1B
8
UNPD Data on
Roma
http://europeandcis.undp.org/data/show/D69F01FE-F203-1EE9-B45121B12A557E1B
9 ROMA
IN EUROPE: Issues and policy responses
11 NATIONAL
DELIBERATIVE POLL: Policies toward the Roma in Bulgaria
13
Roma in Europe: issues and
policy responses
Comments
Post a Comment