In the days leading up to International Roma Day (8 April), 35 Roma young people and youth workers gathered for a seminar “Roma Youth Together” at the Youth Centre in Strasbourg. This was an opportunity to discuss how the Council of Europe’s polices are shaped, how discrimination can be addressed, and how we can ensure youth empowerment and participation.
Florentina Manea from Romania, representing E-Romnja, an organization that fights for the rights of Roma women and girls, shared her experiences and explained what the Council of Europe means to her.
“I am Roma. I am a woman - and very recently, I got accepted to Oxford! I think that the Council of Europe had a really big impact on my life in enhancing my skills and allowing me to go to such a prestigious university”.
She emphasised that it is very inspiring for Roma women to be able to represent their community and interact with the experts of the Council of Europe and participants from other countries.
“This opportunity is great, because we are here to learn a lot of new things, hone our skills on the subject of human rights, and to raise awareness of the Roma community. I think it is important and needed, especially for youth and for Roma women to be here and try to devise, together with other organisations from all over the world, strategies and form partnerships to make sure that people know more about our community and about our concerns”, she said.
The seminar was co-organised with Roma-led youth organisations, including the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC), TernYpe, the European Roma Grassroots Organisations (ERGO) Network and Phiren Amenca.
