Albert Memeti (Bulgaria, RAP '12)

RGPP is just like the roots of a tree that furnish the nutrients for the community growth by providing an environment to develop your knowledge, to embrace and challenge your own identity and develop academic skills to challenge the status quo of the Roma in the society. 

Once you join the RGPP community, you can’t go out of it so easily, it keeps “hunting” you – the struggle to change something, the endless discussions about Roma, the sleepless nights to pass the TOEFL, the position papers, all of that and much more, flavored with the dorm life and Roma parties. It has been amazing to see during this five years how big our community became and moreover to see my RGPP fellows participating in different conferences, leading initiatives, becoming tutors, engaged in different activities that, directly or indirectly, give back to the community. 

Today, I see RAP as a place for building the next generations of Roma in academia, equipped with knowledge, skills, and values, ready to bring positive changes in the society.