The Association for the Development of Civil Society from Bijelo Polje has started the implementation of the project “Informed and Empowered: The Rights of Roma Women in the Community” within the program Supported=Empowered, which is implemented by the Fund for Active Citizenship in partnership with the “Slagalica” Foundation for Local Community Development from Croatia.
The program is financed by the European Union and co-financed by the Ministry of Public Administration.
The project aims to contribute to the concrete empowerment of Roma women and their families in the municipality of Bijelo Polje through direct in-house visits, joint training on topics important for improving their position, and a comprehensive promotional campaign within both the Roma and the wider community.
The primary target group of the project, as stated by the Association for the Development of Civil Society, are Roma women and their families living in the settlements of Rakonje, Nedakusi, Strojtanica, and Ploče.
“We witness every day the unenviable position of an otherwise most vulnerable female population in Bijelo Polje – Roma women, who are multi-marginalized and discriminated against,” emphasize the Association.
As they stress, Roma women are disenfranchised, mostly illiterate, and some, as they say, still beg.
“With the proposed project, we want to influence and point out that it is high time for them to become aware, for every man and the community itself to realize that even in their settlement and family, a woman has the right to be equal, has the right to a life without violence, that her opinion, rights, wishes, and health must also be taken into account, and not just a lifetime of poverty, begging, precisely because of necessity and for the benefit of the man – the head of the family,” the Association concludes.