The project "Youth Participation through Pictures" aims at encouraging young Roma people from Romania, the Slovak Republic and Ukraine to take part in the decision making process dealing with social exclusion by empowering them to use an unconventional public participation method: the PhotoVoice.
Partners
Romania: CeRe, "Partner for You" Association (APT - Asociatia Pentru Tine)
The Slovak Republic: NGOs Život je šanca (Life is a chance) & Modrý motýľ (Blue butterfly)
Ukraine: NGO Moloda Gromada (Young Community)
Main Activities For 6 months, 48 Roma teenagers from the three countries will apply the PhotoVoice method in order to show how social exclusion affects them in their respective communities and bring on the public agenda their concerns and the solutions they believe work best to tackle their problems.
The main activities are:
training on advocacy, public participation and PhotoVoice for the nat
ional project teams;
training sessions on advocacy, public participation and PhotoVoice for the young Roma beneficiaries in Romania, the Slovak Republic and Ukraine;
application of the PhotoVoice method by the young Roma people in their communities: photo shooting sessions, weekly discussions about the photos taken;
organization of PhotoVoice exhibitions in Romania, the Slovak Republic and Ukraine and of three public debates on Roma social inclusion policies in the opening of the exhibitions;
campaigns of post cards and desk calendars with pictures from the exhibitions sent to European - where applicable - and national authorities that are responsible for the shaping of social policies regarding minorities, both by the public and the project partners;
creation of a project's catalogue with pictures taken by the young Roma people in the three Romanian, Slovak and Ukrainian communities.
The photos taken by the young Roma people from Malul Vanat (Romania), as they were showed in the exhibition.
The Current Stage The project is managed as having two components: Romania - Slovakia and Romania - Ukraine.
In Romania and Slovakia the activities began in January 2009. Currently, the young Roma people are taking photos in their communities and meet weekly with the local project team to discuss them and agree on the theme for the following week.
CeRe planned its first workshop on PhotoVoice for the Ukrainian project team in Bucharest, scheduled for May 2009.CeRe organized the first activity for the Romania - Ukraine component of the "Youth Participation through Pictures" project, in the period May 5 to 11, 2009. The visit to CeRe's partners in Ukraine has an interesting agenda: discussion of project implementation, training on advocacy, public participation and PhotoVoice, study visit to the community to see how the method works in practice and a meeting with donors and the Black Sea Trust - Romania.
Between 23 to 26 June 2009, the project team "Youth Participation through Pictures" was in Slovakia to conduct an interim evaluation of activities undertaken. The project unfolds in Raslavice village, about 50 km from the city of Kosice.
On June 13 took place in Odessa the first local workshop with young Roma involved in the project. We wish them success and more and more meaningful photos!
Between September 16 to 30 took place in Pitesti the photo exhibition of young Roma people from Malul Vanat. Young Roma participated at the public debate on the opening day, where representatives of local and national authorities have talked about solving some of the concerns raised in the photos. Throughout the period of the exhibition, postcards were given to the visitors that sent them to public decision makers, both from Romania, and also to European institutions. The impact of PhotoVoice post cards exceeded our expectations! For instance, one post card sent to the Ministry of Education in order to denounce Roma segregation in one school of Merisani, generated a lot of fuss among education institutions. The conclusion is that as of the next trimester there will be no more separate Roma/Romanian classes in the school! To see an example of the postcards, click here.
In Slovakia, the exhibition opened on November 6. The young participants from Romania had the chance to visit the Slovak exhibition and compare the two communities and how they were reflected by the Photovoice project, as the two groups of young Romanians and Slovaks met in Slovakia from 18th to 22nd November 2009.
PhotoVoice workshops continue in Ukraine, where a group of young Roma in Belgrade Dnistrovsky, Odessa, are taking photos that illustrate the values and concerns of their community.
The component Romania - Slovakia is funded by the „Youth in Action" Programme of the European Commission, DG Education and Culture, Sub-Action 1.3 - Youth Democracy Projects.
The component Romania - Ukraine is funded by the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation through the „Eastern Links" programme.
