Campaign fighting discrimination against Roma, Sinti and Camminanti

My name is Anna Stankovic, I’m 21 and I’m a Serbian Roma. Last summer Comunicamente, a media agency, called me to tell me they were organizing a public media campaign for the Bologna Municipality, a campaign fighting discrimination against Roma, Sinti and Camminanti. To sponsor the campaign they needed three people willing to be photographed during their everyday life, to represent and underline that Roma, Sinti, Camminanti and Gagè people are all normal people doing the same things and leading an everyday life like everyone else.

Giving my image, my face, my everyday life for this campaign has been a step I wanted to take to give my little contribution to this big project which is very important for me. I have given my face to show my determination to do something for my people, my community, something that could draw people’s attention, raise their curiosity; because curiosity is the beginning of something that leads to discovery; to knowledge about a community so discriminated and segregated by the media and other citizens in general.

In October 2014 I was offered some communications training, organized by the Bologna Municipality for the Roma MATRIX project. The training was linked to what was becoming a real public media campaign, during which we were able to learn how a campaign really works, and we also took part in a spot for the campaign with a local radio station.

Afterwards, the campaign was launched during the International Remembrance day. I participated to the press conference, and was able to speak in front of the journalists.

Then we learned about a new project, Roma-Net Delivery Pilot. Me, Vincenzo and Shyla, (two other Roma and Sinti young people) were given the chance to share our experience and passion during a 3 days cultural festival, in front of an international audience, since the Roma-NeT project partners were participating, too. Such a big audience is extremely scary for someone who has never spoken in public before! So some training was organised and this led to us learning to express ourselves in front of an audience, and on February 5th to 7th I managed to present, with Vincenzo and Shyla, a photo exhibition realized by Bologna Municipality and 21 Luglio association, and I also managed to deliver my speech in which I described my path to being involved with these two European projects.

Having been involved in every step of these projects, I can definitively say that having the chance to express myself and give my opinion about choosing of the photos, the presentation of the exhibition and the speech I gave to an international audience was wonderful. I feel it was very important for me and I feel satisfied because I know I did my best, that I took a small step towards the elimination of prejudice and stereotypes that still exist in a society so evolved, that continues to judge us without having any knowledge of who we are.