Projects

  • Living Library in the “Athe Sam!” festival

In June 2009 Romaversitas students took part in the second „Athe Sam!“  art festival. The title means “Here we are”. We organized discussions with other Hungarian youth organizations about the situation of Roma in Hungary and approaches to improve it. During the festival Romaversitas students acted as “living library”. They were the books and the visitors of the festival could borrow and read them for a certain time; thus, experienced the personal history and today’s reality of the books in an interactive manner.  The activity was very popular and will continue in the future.

  • Navigator training

Every month the British Council trains Romaversitas students to be “navigators”. The main focus of the training sessions is empowerment through the development of leadership skills of Roma students who are supposed to play an active role in their communities afterwards. Altogether seven training sessions will be facilitated including concepts like “appreciative inquiry”, “systems thinking” and “4-D-cycle”. Students will also identify next steps for their professional development. Moreover, the students are going to start their own project ideas and implement small projects on their own. 

  • Peaceful protest on the International Roma Day at the European Roma Platform (08. 04. 2011) 

The 5th European Roma Platform met in Budapest on the International Day of Roma to discuss about Roma integration strategy framework. The Hungarian members of the ternYpe International Roma Youth Network and the students of Romaversitas Foundation decided to demonstrate to highlight some question about the strategy, such as the framework doesn't expicitly address Roma youth.In front of the building where the Platform meeting was, Romani civilans, Romaversitas students and ternYpe members protested peacefully, and celebrated Romani culture and raised awareness of the issues facing Romani people.

  • Free hugs campaign on the streets of Budapest (08. 04. 2011) 

After the protest we started to share free hugs for the passer-bys. We wanted to cheer up people, and see  a smile on  their faces. Our main goal was to introduce that the mutual respect and acceptance exists between Roma and non-Roma people.

 

  • Children’s Day at Gyöngyöspata(21. 05. 2011 Project with the International Roma Youth Network ternYpe)
The Hungarian far right looks set to roll out a campaign of Roma intimidation after meeting little resistance to its vigilante "law and order" mission in Gyongyospata, a Hungarian village of 2,800 people 80km north-east of Budapest.For A Better Future, a paramilitary organisation deriving its name from a Nazi youth movement slogan, entered the village at the start of February. The little children lives in fear day-to-day. So, we - the Hungarian members of tenYpe - decided to visit them on the Children’s Day.We played and talked with the children, who welcomed us with sincere.