From March 1-3 in 2024, our Romani Studies Program at Central European University (CEU) went on a study trip from our home university in Vienna to visit Romani NGOs in Budapest. Our group consisted of students from a diversity of nationalities, like Serbia, Albania, Finland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, and the United States. The students varied in socio-economic and academic backgrounds, with intersecting lived experiences, and came from departments like studies, and comparative history. Our educational excursion to Budapest may have been brief, but it was rich in insights into the Roma community in Hungary.
Despite the limited time, we delved into the remarkable efforts and passion dedicated to Roma causes in the region. Moreover, the trip provided an excellent platform for students enrolled in the Advanced Certificate in Romani Studies to critically analyse various issues. This news aims to briefly encapsulate our experiences.
Over the course of three intense days, we explored numerous sites and engaged in stimulating discussions. Our journey commenced with a guided walking tour of Budapest's 8th district, led by Norbert Horváth from the UCCU Roma informal Education Foundation. He shed light on the district's history and the ongoing challenges faced by the Roma population. One notable issue discussed was school segregation, which persists despite efforts to combat it, leading to further exclusion and marginalisation of Roma children. Additionally, we learned about the perception of the district as unsafe due to alleged criminal activities by Roma residents, a stereotype contradicted by our firsthand experiences.
Following this insightful tour, we met with Anna Daróczi from Phiren Amenca, who shared their efforts towards empowering the Romani community, particularly youth, in collaboration with other Roma NGOs. The day concluded with a captivating concert at the House of Hungarian Music, featuring Áron Horváth on the cimbalom—an experience that highlighted the power of representation in cultural events, challenging prevailing stereotypes through music.
The power of representation is not just sequestered to cultural events, of course, and on the
second day of the study trip we were exposed to activists who spearheaded Romani representation in politics. We found out that the importance of political representation for the Hungarian case, but all over Europe as well. In the great discussion we had with Aladár Horváth at the New Roma Parliament, we had the chance to touch upon issues of Hungarian politics and the dilemmas, we would say, of inclusion.
The space itself and the power the Roma Parliament has is almost non-existent when it comes to political decision-making processes, pushing me to think of not only the parliament, but also other institutions created for Romani, as concessions – having the spaces, but lacking the power and capacity to use those spaces to make changes. This was one of the main issues that needs to be addressed and came up later in our study trip. I liked the phrase Aladár Horváth used, which was that “Romani used to work with Romani for Romani.” Today, there is either no Romani, or Romani who cannot work with Romani due to the political pressures or attendance with the Fidesz regime.
After this meeting, we went to the Romano Kher Cultural Center, an amazing space which had an International Women’s Day art exhibit hanging on the walls when we arrived. However, contrary to Roma Parlament, which had very limited space for their activism, Romano Kher had a much larger and updated space, but didn’t have the budget to use it. However, something significant was being prepared by Melinda Rézműves which is a book that standardises the Romani language.
During the third and the last day of our trip, we visited the Roma Art Gallery with Ágnes Daróczi and got to know about the research of Romani culture. She is an authoritative and matriarchal woman, and she spoke with clarity and sincerity. It was clear to us that she understood the stakes of Romani activism, through her lived experience, and imparted motivation and hope to our study group.
Some of the thoughts we would express getting to know and see how many institutions are in Hungary currently, are all around the same question of how the situation of Roma continues to be problematic regarding racism, discrimination and exclusion if there are all these institutions, which it reflects what has been mentioned above already, the power and the authority of changing something for their own community with the institutions that have been given to them is lacking.
We think it is interesting and confusing that despite the amount of NGOs that are operated by Romani, and employ Romani there is still a significant gap of influence that needs to be bridged. We think it makes sense, but it affects each NGO differently. With Romano Kher, there is space and desire to network but there is no budget to wade through the mire of bureaucratic applications and project proposals. With the Roma Parlament, there is a clear engagement and drive for activism, and there is a budget, but there’s no space to house their offices or host larger legal events. Another concern that can be raised is the unity Roma should establish within the community, which I believe will be and should be the first step of making changes. Once this unity is established, the changes will be visible beyond it.
Overall, we feel like the experience was formative and insightful, and gave us motivation and a hopeful outlook on Romani activism for the future. This is mostly due to the hard work and lived experience of the previous activists that we met, whose efforts to cultivate the soil and plant the seeds will allow us to tend to the environment that they grew and see it flourish.
This article was written by: Stelina Dungaj, MA student, Sociology and Social Anthropology and Tyler Stephens, MA student in Comparative History
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