Third week from Estefania: ups, downs, and the unknown

This second week and the last week of working with the NGOs I realized that my creative program proposal was not as “new” as I thought it was going to be. Lidia at Slovo 21 informed me that a similar program had already been submitted for a grant proposal but it was denied funding. These news disappointed me since I put a lot of thought on my idea. Regardless, I began to research other ideas that were not as complex as my first one and decided on things like a cooking competition for Roma women, soccer matches that would include girls, and field days that included learning while playing. After reviewing my second draft of ideas, Lidia suggested that these were of smaller scale that could be integrated into bigger programs and that on their own, were not complex enough to apply for the grants that I had found on the previous week. I was satisfied enough that at least my ideas could be used eventually for a bigger program, but I was still disappointed that I did not have a specific program that I could begin to write a grant proposal for. Regardless, I wanted to help with something else until the last day arrived, so I asked for more work. To my surprise, I began a bigger project: to design a four-day schedule for a summer camp for Roma youth, with activities for the morning, afternoon and evening. I took on the two-day challenge of doing something I had no experience ever doing before. I immediately reached out to an expert in this matter, I contacted Tyrone at Lehigh who gave me helpful advice on methods of approaching minority youth and motivating them to be proud of their heritage while still being a leader in the community. I was thankful to receive a quick reply from him along with a pdf file of empowerment activities for youth. I began designing the first two days, then I began to question whether the youth would like it or not. This process of questioning and worrying made my creativity take longer to unfold but it certainly showed that I actually cared about the young Roma having a good experience and coming out of the camp proud to be Roma.

Looking forward to our group project, I feel that the attitudes non-Roma have against Roma are certainly hard to change. In knowing that Roma are seen as “black” and unwelcomed, makes it much harder to take away labels that society has already established. Our project will need creativity if we are aiming to impact attitudes, but maybe we can plant a small seed on people's mind into wanting social inclusion of Roma. I'm looking forward into discovering what we want to do as our project, until then, I am happy to be in Prague, my new home.

Jelena, the director at Šlovo 21.