Amaro Drom is active in nine Albanian Roma communities and is dedicated to empower the Roma communities. We want Roma to play an active and a key role in their lives, to be citizens with equal rights and duties like others in society. Amaro Drom wants the Roma gain respect in the eyes of local authorities and that the local authorities fulfil their tasks and responsibilities towards Roma communities. For that, Amaro Drom has prepared its own three-phased strategy to achieve these goals.

 

During the first phase, Roma are encouraged to set up projects in their communities, such as infrastructure, economy or cultural issues. These projects are not targeted to solve all of the existing and potential problems but with more priority to involve people in the decision making process.

 

In the second phase, Amaro Drom sets up different groups within the communities to be involved in self-organised activities. The self-organised activities are aimed at capacity development of individuals and the strengthening of subgroups within the community. In the third phase, Amaro Drom helps local Roma to become visible and to make their voice heard towards local and regional authorities by stimulating local leaders to unite in representative structures. The mobilisation of people takes place during network meetings and site visits. Spolu supports several regional networks which our partners established. As an example, Integro from Bulgaria has united Roma Progress from Macedonia and EDROM from Turkey into a regional network that brings together local leaders, youth and staff from the organisations. Through Roma Active Albania, Spolu supports the development of an international Youth network, which unites Roma youngsters from across Europe. Spolu is preparing a youth programme to structurally support Roma youth empowerment and networking as well as a specific women programme.

Spolu is one of the European players in lobbying, advocacy and founding of the European Roma Policy Coalition (ERPC). ERPC is the collaboration between the main European NGOs that deal with racism, human rights and Roma, such as Amnesty International, European Network Against Racism (ENAR), European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and Open Society Institute (OSI).

 

Novoselë is a small Roma community situated near Vlorë that consists of 120 families of which 54 are Roma. Amaro Drom has been working in this community for three years. When Amaro Drom started to work here, the situation was very complicated. The members of the community were unorganised and they were not represented by anyone. People had lost all confidence on the improvement of their situation and many of them were only concerned about their own personal problems. The living conditions for the members of the community were very harsh. The economic level was very low: most families lived from the collecting and selling empty cans, many children quit school, socio-cultural activities were lacking and the infrastructure was in a disastrous state. The local Roma did not have any relationships with local authorities. It seemed that Roma people were forgotten by local authorities. In the beginning, the goal of Amaro Drom was to activate this Roma community and the people to become responsible for claiming their own rights and at the same time to fulfil their obligations towards their community. The first step taken by Amaro Drom was the establishment of a local board to represent the community. This board assumed the responsibility to represent the community to local authorities, to manage projects and to organise the community during the implementation of the projects.

 

Amaro Drom launched a series of initiatives and conducted several training events, exchange of activities with other communities, and various seminars to further develop the capacity of the local board. Also, several projects are carried out to activate the community (e.g. house refurbishment, water supply system works, canalisation network refurbishment, support of the youth sports team, geese breeding and sheep breeding activities). All these activities made the further promotion of the local board’s role possible and made the community more active with regard to self-initiatives for the improvement of their living conditions. In this way, the community of Novoselë developed its organisational capacity.

The old mentality of the community - lacking adequate capacity and inability to solve problems has been overcome by these initiatives. Presently, the community has a local board representing the interests of the community, in which its members have full confidence. They are now involved in common activities and there are several activity groups (e.g. youth sports group, women group with self-organised activity on geese breeding, economic initiative group on sheep breeding project). People contributed both materials as well as voluntary work. The community has established strong contacts with the local authorities, which provided contributions to most of the projects. The local board has also established good relations with other organisations with a special focus on the solution of community problems.

 

Fifteen families from Novoselë are involved in the economic initiative ‘Sheep breeding’. During a survey carried out by Amaro Drom, the lack of income came forward as the main problem. Seeing the great interest of the community, Amaro Drom decided to establish a local rotating fund to provide micro-finance for sheep breeding on subsistence level.

The families included in the project were selected based on the following set of criteria:

- Experience in sheep breeding.

- Low economic level of the family.

- Material environment available for keeping sheep (shed, land and etc.).

- Sense of responsibility.

The selection of the families was made by community members. Several community meetings were conducted to select the families. Fifteen families were selected out of twenty. The fund was divided among these families and each of them signed a loan agreement promising to pay back the loan after 1½ years and stipulating the obligations of the borrower.

From the loan, each family bought three sheep, one pregnant and another one with a lamb. Additionally, a veterinarian was appointed to visit the families three times a month to provide veterinary service. During the first year, the veterinarian was supported by Spolu and thereafter, he would be supported by the families themselves.

The families involved in this economic initiative organised regular meetings with each other in the community centre. During the meetings, the family members involved in the project exchanged experiences, thus extending their knowledge in the sheep breeding process. They started to think not only of the present but they are better oriented towards the future. Progressively, the families have collected broader information on the sheep breeding process and have become responsible to expand their own business. The sheep breeding project not only developed the sense of responsibility of the families but it also increased their income.

Another successful activity in Novoselë is the self-organised geese breeding project that gave the opportunity to fifteen women to get organised and to start a small scale business. All of the women involved in geese breeding are unemployed housewives. Hence, this activity gives them an opportunity to be actively engaged. The women made a list with the names of those to be included in the geese breeding and at the same time they presented a request to the local board to support them with funds. Amaro Drom supported the women by setting up a local saving and credit group. Together, the women managed the money and took the responsibility for a loan that was distributed among the women in order to purchase geese. As a group, they found a market for the purchase of geese. Each woman bought a couple of geese. The women that were included in the activity have adequate experience in geese breeding.

The entire group shares the responsibility of paying back the money. Each woman signed a loan agreement that clearly stipulates the deadline of paying back the money. The women have created a consolidated group and set the rules to be respected by all of its members. Twice a month they meet at the community centre. The decisions within the group are taken in a democratic manner.

The group has elected a leader to be responsible for the organisational aspects of the activity. The leader has the right to organise the group but cannot make decisions without agreement from the rest of the group.

However, this activity had also caused some adverse effect on the organisation of women and their common actions. For example, one of the women involved in this activity slaughtered one of the geese without the agreement of others. This situation generated a conflict within the group because the rules that were decided on a collective basis were broken. The other women organised a meeting and decided that the woman should either replace the slaughtered goose or she has to pay back in money and be kicked out of the group. This decisive action of the group had a great impact on the solution of the conflict because in the end, the woman was obliged to purchase another goose.

The meetings have not only encouraged the women to expand the geese breeding activity but also to plan for other activities in the future. For example they expressed their desire to organise a party on Women’s Day, celebrated every 8^th of March, with half of the total cost covered by the women themselves and other half to be subsidised. It is worth mentioning that this is the first time the women wanted to get together and celebrate Women’s Day.

After describing our empowering approaches, we now turn to the issue of how interventions from other support organisations interfere with the long-term aim of building independent Roma communities and strengthening the Roma voice. First we take a look at Heifer, an international foundation that works worldwide in development countries. Heifer has developed a successful international programme with the ‘Passing through the gift’ principle: families receive an animal as a ‘living credit’. The first female offspring has to be passed on to another family. This chain effect enables families to strengthen their economic base and helps build communities to make them self-sufficient.

Amaro Drom was very interested to share experiences with Heifer Albania and contacted them to have a meeting. They agreed to collaborate in the framework of an IGA project in Levan, where thirteen Roma families were provided with interest-free loans of €500 to purchase pigs. Heifer trained the families to ensure a profitable activity. The project had good results with more than 50% of people involved in the project asked for further extension of the project.

Heifer provides tailor-made trainings to the individuals involved. Before they started to work in Levan, Heifer made a study visit to the community, to assess the situation of the families and to prepare the agenda of the training events. Based on this study, it was decided that the theme of the series of trainings was ‘How can people start to think in an economic-oriented manner?’ Heifer asked the participants to keep a record file of the expenses made for the sows and the piglets. One of the highlights of the session was an exchange of experience with a commercial pig farmer, which once started with a single sow and grew to a large pig farm. The cooperation with the farmer was a good move because it provided the participants a future perspective of their hard work.

Heifer designed the project in following his ‘passing through the gift’ philosophy. Amaro Drom had strong doubts about this ‘gift’ approach because in their experience, this does not awaken a serious attitude that is needed for having successful economic initiatives. Although the ‘gift’ approach was successful in thousands of projects all over the world, giving a pregnant animal for free to a Roma family does challenge their ‘live by the day’ mentality and certainly would not change their attitude to depend on outsiders for assistance. According to Amaro Drom, providing loans that need to be paid back in a certain period will empower Roma and make them independent and self-conscious.

Not fully convinced, Heifer decided to carry out a pilot project under Amaro Drom responsibility but following their ‘Passing through the gift’ philosophy. During its preparations, they held a series of meetings with members of the community and leaders of the local board and they have decided to on a goat breeding project. Thirty families showed interest to participate, of which fifteen could start the first year and fifteen the second year. Still sceptical on the gift approach, Amaro Drom warned Heifer that the first offspring would bring problems to the community because the participants consider it a gift. After many discussions about this issue, Heifer changed their project and provided the animals based on loan agreements.

 

World Vision is an international support organisation with a Christian background that works in development counties all over the world. Among other regions, World Vision works in the Vlöre region. Here, World Vision started to work in Novoselë in 2003 with the aim to raise the educational level of Roma children. They experimented with income generating activities with the assumption that Roma families will send their children to school if they have an income. One family was offered a cow in return for sending their children to school. Unfortunately, the family did not take the offer serious and immediately sold the cow but they had to give the money back to World Vision.

The work of Amaro Drom was troubled by this approach because the people from the community started to ask for gifts as well. Even worse is that the people started to distrust the members of the board as well as the staff of Amaro Drom. It took three years of work to gain the trust and to prove that the people in the Roma community can change their position in society. They successfully increased their capacity and finally, have a vision for the future. The members of the board  have proven their management and negotiation skills and built up good relationships with local authorities and institutions like the Directorate of Education.

Felt hreatened that the work in Novoselë would be more troubled in the future, Amaro Drom decided to have a meeting with the local coordinator of World Vision. The coordinator was aware of the unrest in the community and was open to discuss how to create a complementary approach towards the community. As a result, World Vision adapted their approach using the experiences of Amaro Drom, which works successfully with the community. Since then, World Vision and Amaro Drom coordinate their projects in Novoselë, as well as in other communities that Amaro Drom works in.

All in all, with Heifer, Amaro Drom succeeded to develop a complementary approach on income generating activities for Roma and with World Vision, Amaro Drom succeeded to coordinate activities that reinforced the development of the Roma community in Novoselë. We see it as an important development in Albania, that development organisations start to discover the added value of collaboration and coordination with local organisations.