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Almería thematic report

Edited on

12 September 2017
Read time: 3 minutes

Theme:  Changing Attitudes

The Almeria meeting of the Roma-NeT partners was the fifth set of transnational meetings to take place in the Roma Net pilot delivery phase.  The first set was in Nagykálló, the second in Budapest, the third in Glasgow, the fourth was in Torrent.  From the Glasgow meeting on all our transnational meetings were all partners meetings and not separate meetings for the two Working Groups, we retained the themes and combined the meetings.  Our key theme in Almeria was ‘Changing Attitudes’.

The aims of the Almeria meeting were to:

  • consider ways to change attitudes towards Roma
  • hear about others’ experiences of changing attitudes towards Roma
  • discuss the current format and ‘membership’ of the LSGs and if this needs refreshed
  • consider what makes a positive image of Roma people and how this can be used effectively to help change attitudes and create aspiration
  • begin a discussion about partners role in the Final Conference and what messages and results should be discussed there

This was a significant meeting for Almeria because they designed the event with a view to showing their colleagues from partner cities what progress had been made in the housing settlements that house Roma since the last visit of Roma-NeT in the first phase of the project.  Several site visits were arranged to communities such as Los Almendros to discuss housing and community issues and projects.  This was very interesting for all concerned, whether they had previously visited these areas or not.

 

            

       

The Agenda is included below.  It included masterclass presentations from Ms. Lola Ramón of the Fundación Secretariado Gitano (FSG) and Tito Spinola of Gitanos con Palabra (GCP) as well as a Q&A sesión with these presenters and their colleagues. 

These presentations gave partners an opportunity to see a handful of the many campaigns that FSG has undertaken since they began and to hear about the very successful programme Acceder which started in 2000.  Acceder promotes Access to the labour market for Roma and has become a very successful national programme across Spain. 

The rapid growth and acceptance of this programme is at least in part due to the siginifcant resource spent on campaigns that help Roma aspire to work or study in areas that they may not have previously considered and also show Roma in a positive light to the majority population. 

Tito’s presentation showed partners the power of media awareness-raising campaign that was led by the community and not the municipality or an NGO.  GCP did go to FSG for capacity-building support, but the concept and production of their film came from a group of both Roma and non-Roma Friends who had grown up together and didn’t like the discrimination they saw outside of their own circle of Friends and was resourced through crowd-funding and donations in–kind.

Partners also participated in workshops facilitated by the Expert Team to consider how to change attitudes locally and whether they could use some of the work already done by FSG to replicate some of that practice in their own municipalities.  GCP also shared that they are in the process of developing a pack for schools and said that this would be available for schools soon.  At least two partners intend to take them up on this offer.

The workshops also gave partners an opportunity to consider the ‘members’ of their LSGs and whether this needed refreshed and of so, how.  This was a really useful workshop.

 

       

 

Agenda

Almeria – 12-13 November 2014

Theme: Changing attitudes

 

Tuesday 11 November

 

Arrival of participants – dinner- details in the practical info

 

Wednesday 12 November

 

08.30

Meeting of the participants at the hotel’s hall.

 

09.00 - 09.40

Official Welcome

Mayor of Almería, Lead expert, Thematic expert

 

(Photo up)

 

09.30 – 09.40

Introduction of the theme “Changing attitudes”

 

09.40 – 10.10

The work as integration (Almeria LAP implementation- Part I)

 

Fundación Secretariado Gitano – Ms. Lola Ramón

 

Actions and programs they carry out with the Roma community:

  • Acceder
  • Promociona
  • Aprender Trabajando

 

10.10-10.30

Positive experiences of Roma people working, studying…

 

 

Coffee break

 

11.00-

11.40

  Almeria Case Study Presentation

  • “School of mothers”
  • Environmental Project

 

Municipal School Los Almendros and Camelamos Naquerar Association

11.40

13.30

Study Visit CIS Los Almendros

13.30 - 14.30

Lunch

15.00-

16.30

Update from Roma-Net Cities ?

  What is the current status and role of the LSGs?

 

  Workshop about the capacity and role of LSGs

  • What is their capacity to monitor LAP implementation?
  • Are the right people involved? 
  • What is needed to change or grow this?
  • Is it seen as a local Governance structure? 

 

 

Dinner

 

Thursday 13 November

 

08.50

  Meeting of the participants at the hotel’s hall.

 

09.15 -10.00

Master Class: Using the media, positive Roma images and campaigning tactics

(Tito Spinola, Lola Ramón and Encarnación Vázquez)

10.00 – 10.30

Experience on using the media, positive Roma images and campaigning tactics

 

Gitanos con Palabra

 

  • Presentation of the association
  • Why Gitanos con palabra?
  • Crowdfunding campaign
  • Trailer of the Short-Film

10.30 – 11.20

Q&A session and round Table

 

Subject: Positive alternatives to Roma stereotypes

Questions:

  • What is a positive Roma image?
  • How can Roma communities be placed in a more positive light?
  • How can we get people to think and behave differently towards Roma?

Participants

  • Technician from Municipality of Almeria
  • Fundación Secretariado Gitano
  • Roma people from Almeria
  • RNet partners

Politicians

11.20- 11.50

Houses building “two years later”

  • Background
  • How the action has been carried out
  • Two years later

11.50-13.00

Study Visit to:

  • Houses building “two years later”, where Roma families are living now.

 13.00

Lunch

14.30

Final conference, final report, newsletters

 

 Workshop and discussions on the aims of the final conference and the remaining outputs

How best to communicate our message?

 

16.30

Summary- learning points

17.00

Agree dates for the next meeting

Funding

 

Site visits:

The site visits to Los Almendros and El Puce showed that some of the housing is at least in a live-able state.  But of course there are still huge issues to overcome.  Not least that this ‘temporary’ housing appears more permanent every day.    However, these visits gave an opportunity for the Lead Expert to inform the Municipality about the opportunities that would be available to remedy this in the new structural funding. 

Additionally, partners visited a nursery school and community centre and heard about the ‘School of mothers’.  Here, local Roma women have taken it into their own hands to provide education for mothers in the community whilst their children are at nursery and school.  As a result of the visit, Roma-NeT will be funding some scholarships for this project.  This was another really excellent example of how grassroots, community-led initiatives are often the most effective.

 

     

 

 

Learning outcomes:

This two day meeting gave partners the opportunity to think about how they can influence a change in attitudes locally.  Partners learned:

  • That they should continuously consider the ‘membership’ of their LSGs and how it is working for them and how to improve on this
  • That small, community-led initiatives can have the most impact
  • That when it looks like there is no funding available to do what you initially set out to do, there may actually be another way and it could even be better
  • That municipalities need to look for the community-led work in their own localities that are already doing good work to influence attitudes and change and support them to do it rather than duplicating that work every time.