Taking a look into the past for investing into the future of roma youngs employment!

Date 5 November 2017 Author Mishto Felix Category Youth

When it comes to Roma, I think the best investment is in ethnic identity, especially in developing and promoting language, traditional music, traditional crafts, traditional clothing, intangible heritage and oral culture components (elders councils, legends, etc., ). The Roma in Europe face an identity crisis, particularly marked by the decline of cultural expression opportunities because of the E.U. interest shift to economic and leadership crisis towards the continent, by lower opportunities for using the Romani language due to the constraints that occurred in the context of their economic migration, by the interruption of the traditional crafting handover due to the lack of investments in their capitalization and by the reduced opportunities to preserve immaterial preservation. Being a nation with a strong nomadic and crafting past, the Roma fear that with the loss of these ethnical elements of their identity, they will be assimilated by the majority and their nation will perish, like it has happened with the heterogeneous roma community from the Cannary Islands, that is now struggling to rediscover and strengthen its ethnic roots and traditional crafting.
Regardless of how much poverty, marginalization, discrimination or racism the roma will face, as long as their cultural identity is protected they will still have a motivation to feel proud, to prepare for proper development and for a labour market that shall provide equlity of employement opportunities. No mather how many economical, social or other challenges the Roma will face, there will be a huge need of investing in preserving and promoting their ethnic identity – this could work for the young Roma, this is how I would invest in our future. This is what could provide not only equality employment opportunities, but also a proper participation of the roma youngs into the labour market.

Once per year, migrant roma leave the Occident and return to their old crafts in Romania