Flashmob, Strip Off Stereotypes

Date 24 October 2012 Author Roma React Category Uncategorised

An international group of 40 Roma students launched romareact.org, a new online platform to mobilize Roma communities with a breath taking flashmob where girls and boys strip off stereotypes publicly.

Roma youth had enough of being perceived as beggars, thieves, fortune tellers even though there is an increasing number of Roma graduating from universities.

'Make the Change!' is the call to action message of the flash mob, that refers to an urgent need to help Roma raise from poverty and successfully engage with the non-Roma.

They occupied downtown Edirne in Turkey at 1pm last Saturday and set up the first Roma flash mob ever in the history of the country. 

The crowd got frozen too, it was something they have never seen before. Roma belly dancers, fortune tellers, beggers and an alcoholic invading the crowd suddenly get frozen. Music unfreezes them again and then they change into lawyers, nurses, engineers showcasing through their own personal stories the need to make a change.

Reactors –as ERGO Network in charge of the initiative calls the young agents of change– also want to demonstrate the struggle the educated young Roma have for being different in both the Roma as well as the non-Roma world.

RomaReact.org is celebrating the success of the young educated Roma by setting up events in their own communities and providing international visibility for them. 

Stay tuned!

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The ERGO Network and its members from Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia organized the flash mob under the Roma Women Empowerment campaign titled Our Place, Our Space, Our case. The campaign invests in the empowerment of grassroots Roma women. It also has an on-line component on the Roma React website (www.romareact.org) to visualize the places, spaces and cases of Roma women in their societies.