Simitli is a small town in South Bulgaria, some 40 kilometres away from Sandanski. The Roma constitute about 10% of the population here. Most of the houses are big and nice, the streets are asphalted and the majority of the Roma are employed or have their own business.
In 2005 a Roma woman, employed at the municipal administration as an expert in ethnic and demographic issues, contacted Association Integro and announced her willingness to create Roma social structure in her town.
In July 2006 she and another Roma woman took part in an exchange visit to Zavidovtsi in Bosnia, where a mother centre functions. Upon their return, both women were so motivated to establish a Roma mother centre, that immediately after they came back they met with the mayor, acquainted him with their idea and succeeded to persuade him to provide them a municipal premise for free. Guided by Integro, they began to share their ideas and their impressions from Bosnia with other Roma women. Thus, within a month, they succeeded to attract another ten Roma, mainly well-educated women, and formed an initiative group for the establishment of mother centre “Mother’s love”. As far as they already had ensured a premise – a small room downtown, they divided the tasks connected with the refurbishment and furnishing and within a month had successfully completed these tasks.
In October 2006, the centre opened and the women elaborated their first action plan. At the core of this plan were activities targeted towards children and young Roma. An important characteristic of this plan was that it envisaged self-organised activities, which gather together Bulgarians and Roma.
The first event of mother centre “Mother’s love” was the organising of an all-town celebration on the occasion of New Year Day. The women organised a New Year party for mothers and children. Many Roma and Bulgarian women came to it, together with their children. All of them liked the initiative, but the Roma women were the happiest because it was the first time when they organised a city celebration by themselves.
Sticking to their belief that their chidren should be together with Bulgarian children in everything, they encouraged the formation of a mixed group of Bulgarian and Roma youths, who began to gather at the MC, to discuss urgent topics from the local social life. Thereafter, with the assistance of a Peace Corps volunteer, the youngsters began to publish the youth magazine “Crazy”, in which they depicted events from the life of the local communities and showed their critical opinion on various aspects of the local life. Thanks to their work, many Roma youths grow up with the self-esteem of equal participants in the local society and develop their critical thinking and attitude towards important issues for their community.
Besides this group, the mothers from the MC in Simitli attracted children and young Roma to a dance group for Roma traditional dances. For them it is very important that Roma show their culture to the local society. They collect money to sew traditional Roma costumes for the children, they help the children to create different dances, tell them about the Roma traditions and support the organising of Roma celebrations and events.
The deputy mayor, Mrs.Evgeniya Georgieva also highly appreciates the contribution of the Roma women for organising various town events. She said: “We are always together here, we have never divided, and the MC, although created by Roma women, is open to all women in town. We think that this is a good initiative and have not given up looking for a larger premise, so that the centre can perform all the functions which are envisaged. It would be great to have such centres also in the villages, where we have large Roma communities. This will attract them to the mainstream society.”
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