[Contest 2012] Life between Old and Modern Holocaust

Date 20 November 2012 Author Alin Banu Category Uncategorised

The report contains figures of discrimination in different areas as s result of TRUST NGO in the last six years. The for of presenting this is by describing in a few lines a roma girl`s life.

Nedelica Aida was born in 1982 in Craiova, at County Hospital. That time, 20 years ago, she and her mom were patients hospitalized in saloon no 32. This saloon is a special one..because that one is populated only with roma patience.
Seven years later Aida was ready to join the school, the nearest school was school No 17 Grupul Scolar Auto. This is the school were she studied for 8 years, being one of the few roma students of the school, whom graduated the gymnasium. But this school is also special, each generation of students has a class per level, were only roma students are learning, in one of these classes Aida studied also.
After the graduation Aida went to celebrate with other colleagues but..something happened at the club entrance, her colleagues were allowed to enter but she wasn`t, she was informed that she is not wearing adequate clothes to enter the club…
Aida.. grew up ..but she and her family had to struggle to live, her parents were unemployed, her mom was selling second hand clothes at the weekly market, and her father was collecting iron. It was getting harder and harder so she decided that she must find a job in order to help her family. She went to many interviews, but the result was the same: the job was just occupied.
It was anyway to late cause 2 years ago, she and her family, and the entire community was evicted… and they had to live for three days to some relatives After that they went to France, hoping their lives will change..but….3 months ago they came back in special plain for roma.
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All the aspects presented above are not fiction. Each case apart was identified, monitored and legally assisted by TRUST for the last 6 years.
The main idea is that in all social domains (health, education, access to public spaces, job labor, housing)the phenomena of discrimination exists in its worst shape. What makes it more tragic is that the case of Aida is not single, this kind of live is carried by 20 000 roma people from Craiova, 800 000 roma people in Romania and many more in Europe. All of these leads us to one question: How does a modern holocaust looks like?

The video was filmed during the events happened in 2009 at Sanmartin- Harghita, where TRUST and other 4 NGOs were actively involved in helping the roma community which was violently evicted by local community.

The picture was made one year later during another forced eviction.