Reclaiming our past, rebuilding our future: new approaches to fighting antigypsyism

ongoing

JEKHIPE addresses key structural obstacles in achieving justice and equality for Roma. Annihilation policies and practices have solidified negative perceptions and treatment against Roma since their arrival to Europe, feeding into a perpetuum cycle of marginalisation and victimisation of Roma in society. JEKHIPE focuses on multiple and complementing levels of policy making, including research, monitoring and advocacy, alliances building, awareness raising and capacity building to address core obstacles and concerns hindering Roma equality. It attempts to engage with national and European institutions and relevant stakeholders, including academia, politicians, justice mechanisms, state authorities, civil society and Roma communities themselves and challenge the status quo on approaching antigypsyism, and to propose mechanisms that can create increased accountability by national governments. It builds on the results of the project “Chachipen – Paving the way for a Truth and Reconciliation process to address antigypsyism in Europe“. More specifically, the project aims to achieve the following objectives: - Build transitional justice processes and mechanisms at EU and national level - Develop policy recommendations on transitional justice approaches to address antigypsyism. - Raise awareness on the manifestations of institutional antigypsyism and policy and legislative developments in the fight against antigypsyism. - Promote Roma identity, history and culture as a tool to prevent and fight antigypsyism, also through including Roma history and culture in school curricula. - 5Empower Roma communities and NGO to recognise and fight antigypsyism. - Capacitate local Roma civil society and key stakeholders in countering antigypsyism. The consortium includes the two leading Roma-led umbrella organisations ERGO Network and ERIAC, the Centre for European Policy Studies, and eight national Roma CSOs from Sweden, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Romania and Italy.