The Roma Series

The Visit

A short walk from the spectacularly wasted complex at Gazi, a hop skip and a jump from the trendy bars down those back streets, is a place I can guarantee you have never been to and probably do not know it exists. It is a Roma settlement in the centre of Athens. After the trendy bars, you cross the train tracks (the wrong side of the tracks sprang to mind) Suddenly the road becomes dusty. There are no pavements. Dogs jump suddenly out of alleyways and bark at you until you make friends (which I did a couple of times and they became my faithful companion for about ten feet). Hidden behind a warehouse is a dirt track that leads to hell. This is the entrance to the settlement. I visited Soweto township in South Africa, many years ago and I can honestly say, this place is worse. I am ashamed and appalled that this Europe I live in allows this hell to exist within the shadow of the sparkling Olympic developments. At some point, in the near future, this wasteland is set to become a new sports complex and park but for now it is a rubbish dump that people are trying to live on. Once the evictions happen, they will be forced to move on. Probably to an equally disgusting place, somewhere as hidden and forgotten about as this one.

There are about 80 to 100 families living here (no-one knows for sure). As you enter the camp, there is a pile a old car tires and evidence of the recent fire that burned down several shacks. The smell of the burnt rubber and charred wood still hangs in the air. The small shacks are built from whatever planks and bits of wood, metal and plastic that the residents can find. Inside each one are neatly made beds and an improvised wood-burning stove like the one that sparked the fire a few weeks ago. Outside one such place a women was fruitlessly sweeping soot and dust away from the side of her home. As if she was attempting to make a small spot of hope in all this filth.

There is only one water tap for the entire settlement. The scores of children I saw were filthy, many of them barefoot, their feet so encrusted with mud it was almost as if they had shoes on. They were curious to see a stranger in their place. My guide Theo from the Human Rights organisation, the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM), had taken some group photos of the kids on a previous visit. We came across one of the boys in the group and he pulled the pictures from his bag. A small crowd of children who had been playing in the dirt in the distance quickly gathered around, barely containing their excitement. They delighted at showing me themselves in the pictures. I wondered if any of them had been photographed before? Perhaps only for grim reportage coverage of their miserable living conditions? I do not know. I wish I had a digital camera. I would go and take pictures for them, just for them, to keep and treasure.

It’s the children who break your heart. They were curious and excited. They were playing games that you see all children playing. Chasing and mock fighting. Giggling and pointing, as any child would, at this odd woman who looked so out of place here. Several called out hello. Many just came up and stood listening. Probably wondering what the hell I was doing there. And I wondered myself. What was I doing, observing their degrading living conditions? Unable to comprehend how we can allow these children to grow up here but unable to help in any way at all. Another useless onlooker. I knew I would come home and write about what I saw but I cannot help but think what bloody good is that. They do not go to school. Theo believed that only one of the boys is registered. Their parents mistrust the authorities and believe their children will be shunned and mistreated at school. They have heard what happens when other Roma children try to go to school. I think they have every reason to believe that they will not be treated well. I asked if there had been any attempt to bring teachers to the community. Apparently there has been talk and plans and ideas for this kind of project but, as with everything else, they have remained just that: talk. Almost all the children had missing or decayed teeth. I can only imagine what other health risks are occurring from these filthy surroundings. I believe Hepatitis is common in the Roma community. The children are under-vaccinated against childhood diseases.

The authorities are getting ready to evict this community from the scrapheap of land they live on. Theo was trying to press home the importance of letting the GHM know when the paper was delivered so that legal help could be given. It has happened before that court dates have been set and because no-one has turned up the eviction has been upheld and the police and bulldozers move in. The community here has little time for papers and courts. I suspect that from their point of view they are treated so badly anyway, there is little faith put in procedures. Even well-intentioned ones.

One image stands out in my mind. Everywhere I looked in this squalid, miserable place were hanging spotlessly clean, freshly washed clothes in all the brightest colours you could imagine. They were hanging from washing lines stretched between shacks. They were laid out along the walls at the edges of the camp. Every hanging space was used to dry hundreds of items of clothing. To me, it was like a symbol of the survival instinct of this forgotten community.

So I left their camp and headed home. I decided I needed to walk so I did for a long time before finally reaching home. My house with electricity and running water and bedrooms and oven and washing machine and a room full of toys and our computers and my garden. And I felt bloody guilty. I don’t know really know how to explain all the feelings I felt during my short visit. Shock, disgust, shame, helplessness, anger. But now I am writing this all I feel is guilt. Why? Because I am not going to do anything other than sit at my computer and write this. And that even this paltry attempt at trying to explain what the place is like is nothing like what it is really like. This is a brief description of what I saw. I cannot say what it must be like to grow up in such squalor, a short distance from the swanky bars and cafes of Psyrri. A stones throw from the heart of Athens. I know that I cannot look into the eyes of those children and say I will do something, I will make things better for you. Because they know and I know that I can’t. So does it end there? I am trying to get my head around what I could possibly do. The people at GHM work tirelessly with this community trying to defend their rights and attempting to force the government to live up to it’s obligations in housing the Roma. What could I do? What could we do? That I don’t know…

Votanikos: Water

I have a fair amount to say about my second visit to the Roma settlement in Votanikos so I’ve decided to make it into a series of posts rather than one long one.

Part One: Water

On this occasion we were greeted by a large number of sad looking dogs, barking rather half-heartedly but enough to make me stop and wait. One of the men shouted at them and they backed off, slinking into the corners they had appeared from. “Don’t worry, they’re friendly” he called out and waved us towards him with a big smile. I think the look on my face gave away my total lack of experience of this type of living situation. The arrival there was just as overwhelming as the first time.

It’s filthy.

The community has made a considerable effort to clear the rubbish from the immediate vicinity of their homes but everywhere you look there are more piles.

It’s dusty.

The high winds in Athens this year causing more misery. While I was there, strong gusts of wind blew thick clouds of dust across the whole camp. It gets in your eyes, in your hair, in your clothes. It hurts. I knew I would be walking away in an hour or so. I would be going home.

It’s smelly.

Just try to imagine this. This community is living on a rubbish dump in makeshift shacks built from bits and pieces discarded by other people. There is no water. Not even one tap. Any water that they need has to be collected in plastic containers and brought into the camp. For washing. For pots and pans. For laundry. For everything. Everyone and everything is dirty. Because it is impossible for anything to be clean. There is no toilet. There is no electricity. I believe they have one of two generators which power some lights in the evening. There are an estimated 100 families living there, approximately 500 children.

Just try and imagine that.

And I would bet that the worst we could come up with wouldn’t come anywhere near the reality of living there.

The last time I wrote about the camp I stated that it was worse than some of the poorest parts of Soweto, South Africa that I visited 12 years ago. And this is why.

Water.

In the township, for all its poverty and problems, there was water.

This was the main issue for all the people I talked to. This friendly group of women and girls talked with me at length about their situation. They told me how ashamed they were that they had not been able to wash the pots from lunchtime yet because they had no water. When I asked them about school they said they would be too embarrassed to send their children with dirty clothes and hair. When I asked them what was the main thing they wanted, they all said water. They told me they didn’t want a handout. All they wanted was a tap. They would pay for the water that came out of it. I have thought about that since then.

Is providing clean, safe water considered a handout? I believe that every human being has the absolute right to have access to water. No exceptions. For those of us who can afford to pay for it, we pay. For those who cannot, it should be provided free. Perhaps there are some people banging their heads on their keyboards right about now due to my “radical leftie” statement. I can guarantee that those people who feel that this idea is wrong-headed have NEVER been to a place like this.

Votanikos: Eviction

Part Two: Eviction

Another extremely distressing issue for this community in Votanikos is the continuing threat of eviction. In April 2005 the City of Athens announced plans to build a new football stadium in the area. It is to be the main attraction for the bid to host the 2012 European Football Championship. Bear in mind that Athens hosted the 2004 Olympic Games and currently has several almost brand new stadiums unused and rotting away.

Many people have commented on previous articles I have done on Votanikos, saying that the problem arises from their illegal status. Let me clear this up once and for all. The families have legal resident permits. They are living on this rubbish dump because they have nowhere else to live. No-one will rent houses to them. The racism against the entire Roma community is extreme and relentless but the people in Votanikos have the additional layer of prejudice because they are Albanian not Greek. (I will cover this issue in another post). As legal residents in Greece, they have rights and the State has obligations and responsibilities towards them.

Everyone I spoke to at the settlement talked about being under threat of eviction. I asked when they would be forced to leave. The visible stress on their faces was extreme as they said “Today? Tomorrow? Next year? We don’t know” No-one knows where they will go. They supposed that they would be on the streets. Outside this camp and the few dedicated people who are trying to help them, I doubt that many people care.

The man in the foreground asked me where I was from. I told him from England. His face lit up as he talked about wanting to go there because there would be work, there would be somewhere to live, there would be food for his family. Who the hell am I to shatter his dream? It might possibly be all he has.

They do not want to be living on this poisonous patch of land in this way, and no-one in their right mind would want them to either, but they have no alternative at the moment.

The Greek government illegally evicts Roma communities with alarming regularity and covers its actions by calling them “cleaning operations” . This allows them to act without adherence to the law. They are just “cleaning up” During these operations, they bulldoze houses without giving adequate time for the occupants to remove their processions, often burying the debris under the ground or burning it. What little the people had in the first place is destroyed. All of the Roma at Votanikos have been evicted before, many repeatedly.

There has been another devastating blow to this community (as if they needed any more) The Greek Helsinki Monitor has had its funding cut for Roma rights. No prizes for guessing why. It means that the legal help the GHM were providing, to secure their rights, can no longer be supported.

So the bulldozers will move in one day and demolish their homes and the residents will be left to find some other scrap of land to try and re-build their lives… again.

How does anyone live with this continual harassment and humiliation? With the constant threat of losing everything… again? With the knowledge that you are already at the bottom and people would wish to push you even further down?

Hania: Eviction

Panayote Dimitras of the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) wrote this comment on the post Votanikos: Evictions:

Actually the “cleaning operations” are meant to clean only Roma not the garbage. While we were with DD there, in Hania they were “cleaning” -illegally evicting- the local Roma from an area Roma have lived for over a year. Before it was a garbage dump and no one was cleaning it or was bothered by it. Do you know who cleaned the Roma in Hania? The “inter-municipal company on solid waste” (στερεα αποβλητα)…

Here are pictures of that “cleaning operation” (Photo credit: Haniotika Nea)

These are the people they are actually cleansing the area of…

Votanikos: Education

Before I launch into this next post, I want to make some things clear so as to avoid some of the knee-jerk responses. I am not naive or ignorant about the difficulties of working in education with children who are marginalised on the fringes of society. I have stated before that I worked for many years with children and teenagers who had been, or were about to be, excluded from school . I have a deep understanding of the complex factors that make it difficult for children to be in school, to stay in school or to complete their schooling. For the education process to meet the needs of ALL children there has to be involvement on every level with the authorities, the educators, the social services and the parents/ guardians. In the Roma community, as with all impoverished, marginalised communities, there are specific problems that lead to the children never attending or dropping out of school. Poverty, lack of parental education, racism, mistrust of the system, to name but a few.

Having said that, in Europe, education is compulsory for ALL children from the age of 6 to 16 years old. That means that the authorities must not only provide the education system but it must also act to make sure that ALL children are within it. That means seeking out children who are falling through the net. That means checking up on children who are registered for school and are not attending and finding out why. That means providing social services to help those families to find ways of keeping their children in school. That means special education assistance for those with learning difficulties. That means providing extra classes for those whose native language is not the official one. That means providing transport for those who cannot travel to and from school for a variety of reasons. That means taking responsibility for the other services and social programmes which support ALL children in gaining an education. And the list goes on….

In this post I am plainly focusing on one particular aspect of education for Roma children. Their exclusion. Needless to say, the government is not even getting the first step of providing education for ALL children right.

Getting children in school in the first place.

Part Three: Education

At the settlement in Votanikos, the people told me that none of the approximately 500 children go to school. Why not ? There is an often cited racist myth that Roma children do not go to school because they don’t want to attend. The truth is that they are systematically excluded by the schools, by the education authorities and by the parents of non-Roma children . Municipal and school authorities often refuse to register Roma children or fail to provide transport from distant settlements to the school.

Children that do manage to register and attend school often find that they are placed in Roma-only schools or filtered into racially segregated classrooms. In some of these classes the age range is as much as 6 to 13 years old studying the same book. The standard of education in the segregated schools or classrooms is sub-standard, with very few hours of tuition and frequently absent teachers.

Apart from this extreme reaction of some parents, the attendance of non-Roma children drops dramatically if Roma children are allowed to attend. The parents say that they are worried that their childrens education will suffer as a result (as well as stating numerous other racist beliefs that they hold). Instead of seeking to ensure that the standard of education is high and equal for all children, the authorities keep the numbers of Roma children in any one school down to the bare minimum by splitting them between different schools and municipalities. This means that they are often miles away and cannot get there. Even where school transport is provided for children because they live in remote areas, the bus drivers are not instructed to (or told not to) stop at settlements to pick up the Roma children.

For the children who do manage to be registered, and do manage to get to school everyday, and do manage to have a few hours of teaching everyday, there is still the intolerable level of racism that they face from teachers, parents and classmates. (I will be covering racism in a later post)

Is it still surprising that the children of the Roma communities do not go to school?

I asked some of the girls whether they wanted to go to school. They all said yes without hesitation. Their mother said she knew how important it was that they should learn but she had little hope that any of them would have that opportunity.

While the City of Athens is busying itself with plans of a new stadium and other such monstrous wastes of money, the lives of the 500 children of Votanikos are being destroyed. Overlooked and ignored, And what is more galling to me, and I am sure to everyone who has seen this place, is that it is being done with full knowledge of the situation. It is a systematic and deliberate “turning a blind eye”

If education is the key to the future for children, then they have no future.

And tell me that you can look into the eyes of these little ones and feel nothing about that.

Votanikos: Worldwide

This series of posts on the settlement in Votanikos has received an amazing response from people around the world via comments and email. At this point I want to make one thing very clear. I am focusing specifically on the community that I have actually visited. I am living here and had the opportunity to meet them. I wanted to bring a very personal reaction to the situation and to the problems that they face.

However, this is NOT an isolated case. This is NOT just happening in Greece. This is NOT just about what Greece is or isn’t doing. This is NOT about the Greek people. This is happening all over the world. No government is doing any better than the one here. Many are worse. I have an enormous respect and admiration for the Greek organizations and individuals who are working endlessly to bring about change. I am planning a post on them as part of this series.

I got an email from someone in England today who is facing the exact same problem there. The British government is spending millions to bulldoze their homes rather than doing something to resolve their situation.

I am sure that there will still be some people who will see this series as yet another attack on Greece by a non-Greek. That is not my intention. What I am trying to do here is to highlight a serious problem that I have seen first-hand. A problem that is rarely written about or talked about.

For information about the issues facing these communities across Europe, please see the Balkan Human Rights pages and the European Roma Rights pages. If anyone has any other links for outside Europe or anything of interest on this issue, email them to me and I will add them.

Also, if anyone would like to share their experiences on this subject, please submit your writing via email.

Votanikos: Health

Part Four: Health

There are hardly any studies that have been done to document health issues in the Roma communities in Greece. The Greek Helsinki monitor provided me with one from taken between March 2003 and February 2004, which is shocking to say the least.

Out of a total of 3,664 children (this constitutes half of all children registered as living in settlements), only 4 (0.12%) had the following basic amenities or observed these basic health practices:

1: live permanently in a “proper” (i.e. built) house with running water, electricity and heating
2: washed their whole body more that 3 times a week
3: washed their hands with soap
4: used a toothbrush
5: changed into night clothes before going to sleep
6: wear shoes all year long and

That’s just 4 children out of 3,464.

20% of children are not born in hospital. (Remember, we are not talking about planned home-births with skilled midwives in attendance but babies being born in the squalid settlements I have described in the previous articles.

41% of children have no access to water (individual or communal meters) at all.

The children and babies I saw were far from a picture of health. Most, if not all, had teeth missing or so rotten that they would eventually lose them. I cannot begin to imagine the pain they must suffer from decayed teeth.

All of them had scars on their bodies. It is not unusual for kids to fall down and cut themselves. My kid has numerous scars from childhood falls and accidents. One in particular, is a classic “boxer” scar above one eye where he fell off a chair and hit the corner of the table. We rushed him to the hospital where they put in stitches that were so perfect, you can hardly see the mark now. The scars I saw on the children at Votanikos are entirely different. They were numerous, ragged and badly healed.

Most of the children were barefoot, running over ground littered with broken glass and rusted metal.

My guess is that very few, if any, of the children are vaccinated. None of them have paediatricians or a regular doctor. However, everyone who talked about their experiences with hospitals and doctors were full of praise and admiration for the treatment they received. One man related his recent story of a long stay in hospital (I do not feel it’s right to go into details of the medical circumstances but I will say that it was a very serious situation) The surgeon who treated him helped him in more ways than his recovery required. He helped him financially, he sorted out some of his paperwork, he brought parcels of food for his children. I have never had anything other than the best things to say about the doctors who work in the public hospitals here. The vast majority are incredible.

This communities living conditions is not compatible with health. Again, education is a key to raising health standards but money is required for that to happen. There have been a few (very few) efforts to address health issues. The statistics above come from a study done by a mobile vaccination unit that operated for a year. As far as I know it is not ongoing.None of the residents has regular medical check-ups. The woman do not visit gynaecologists for regular screening or for pre-natal care. No-one has regular dental checks. In short, people do not seek help until it is extremely serious or too late.

The average life expectancy of the Roma is about 20 years below the national average. Around 50 years old. That is shocking.

The woman in this photo has recently lost her husband. He died right there in the settlement. She pointed to the spot a short distance from where we stood. I am not sure what he died of because communication was very difficult. She is deaf.
Despite our different languages and cultures and backgrounds and conditions, there was something she communicated that I could understand: Pain.

“What am I going to do? I have three small children. They have no food. No water. What am I going to do?”

She broke my heart a little bit more.

Votanikos: Precious

In spite of the despair and desolation there in Votanikos, this young lad and I shared a laugh. A simple moment.

But precious…

Votanikos: Children

Part Five: Children

Look at these two little girls. Look in their eyes.

Do you think that they are less than any other child? That they deserve less than anyone else? That they somehow deserve to be living on a rubbish dump? That they they do not deserve a better future?

These are just four children out of the 500 or so living at the Roma settlement in Votanikos. These are some of the ones I met and spoke to (and photographed). I cannot describe what they have done to me. Children have the ability to touch you in ways that you never expected. They were mostly shy of the camera and many did not want to be photographed in the beginning. I took a couple of group shots and then showed them the images. (Oh, the joys of digital) A few came forward and asked me to take pictures of them.

The boy above and I had a small exchange after I had taken one photo of him. He seemed quite angry that I was taking pictures of the other kids and kept telling me that that was enough. I told him it was OK I had a lot of space on my camera for everyone. Still, he insisted I stop, putting his hand in front of the lens. I kept saying it was fine. He went off in a bit of a mood and hovered on the outskirts, watching me. After taking a couple more pictures I turned to him and asked him directly if he wanted me to take another one of him. He immediately came over with his friend and posed for this shot. I just missed capturing the beam on his face (the woes of digital) but it was there… for a moment.

A connection.

I don’t know what this story means. Or what any of the things I have written about this community mean. I just wanted to share it. I think about these children everyday. They have smiled and frowned their way into my heart.

I am going back tomorrow to deliver some much needed clothes and shoes. I hope I will see them all again.

The racism post is coming. I am just finding it hard to find the words…

Votanikos: Racism

Part Six: Racism

This is the hardest post that I have had to write so far. Yes. HAD to write. I could not contemplate writing any of the other posts without having had this one in mind first. I know why it’s hard. I am having to face some realities that I would rather not look at right now. This whole series has stirred up feelings that I would rather not deal with right now. But …

Racism is ugly.

Poverty is ugly

The Roma who live in the Votanikos settlement are doubly discriminated against. For a start, they are Roma and the Roma are one of the most despised and discriminated against communities on the planet. Hated by the vast majority of everyone. The Roma there, are also Albanian. If you could even begin to imagine what that means, you would probably only understand a fraction of the whole picture.

Let’s look at the Roma discrimination first.

I have seen small children literally kicked out of restaurants like animals because they were begging. They are called the G word here which is the equivalent of the N word. I have heard some very compassionate and caring people say that they choose to live like that. That they are naturally dirty. That they are thieves and criminals. And on and on. An everyday threat to children here (and I have heard this in England too) is to say that if you are not a good boy/girl, the gypsies will take you away.

They are unwelcome wherever they go. Disliked. Hated I could say, without exaggeration.

Most people will not employ Roma or rent houses to them. Most people would not be happy to have Roma children in the classroom. Or sit next to them on the bus. Or be in a hospital ward with them. Or be employed alongside them.

The grim reality is that the ones who have nowhere to live but on the rubbish heap I went to, are dirty. They have no water to wash. No soap. No toothpaste. No way to really get clean and stay clean. The other sad realty is that these extremes of poverty and desperation can and does bring out the worst in people.

If you suddenly found yourself with nothing, what lengths would you go to to get something ? Anything ? Food ? Clothing ? Something to sell for cash ? Would you stop at lying ? Grabbing what you can ? Stealing ?

Then think that you grew up with less than nothing. Your entire life you are told YOU are less than nothing. You cannot read. You have no basic education in anything. You will never have a job besides picking up discarded rubbish from the street and selling it, or begging. You will have no basic healthcare. You will die at around 50 years old. Can you even imagine ? I certainly can’t.

Let’s look at the Albanian discrimination.

Take what you read above and add: Everyone hates the Albanians too. Albanians are blamed for most crime here. In the mainstream media, there is hardly a mention of nationality unless the perpetrator is Albanian. Albanians are rarely employed in anything other than menial jobs. Many people will not rent to Albanians and are not happy about their children sharing a classroom with them. They are seen as criminal, stupid and uncultured. Sound familiar ? It is not at all uncommon to insult someone by calling them an Albanian (or a Gypsy)

This is where the tough faces come from. The anger. The lack of trust. The lack of self-esteem. At a very young age. The little ones are already tougher than I will ever be.

My anger about the situation that they are growing up and living in, does not blind me to the fact that it is hard to connect. I know nothing of their lives. I visited three times. I’m just another over-privileged do-gooder, who will nod and look around and go away.

I cannot even begin to pretend that I can do anything real. Change will only come for them with effort from outside AND inside this community. Organisation. Housing. Education. Money.

I am looking at people pushed to the very edge of society and it’s ugly. I am seeing the reality of that and it’s ugly. I have been at a loss as to what to say in this final post in this series. (For now) I am not an academic. I don’t have any solutions. In fact all I can do is what I am doing now. Write about the situation. Tell whoever is reading, that this is how people are living in this European city. And again, this is not only about the Roma in Votanikos. For me, this is about how we continue to treat our fellow human beings all over the world, despite all our talk and our pride in democracy.

I guess it comes down to the fact that we still think and feel that some people are worth more than others. And that is heartbreaking.

[I went again today hoping to see some of the kids I photographed and to give them the pictures. Sadly, none of them were there. They were out working]

Segregated School

The new year has begun and the holidays will be over far to quickly and our thoughts will be turning towards the new school term starting on Monday. I want to tell you about one particular school that I visited a few weeks ago. It is in Aspropyrgos, about 20 km from the centre of Athens. We were greeted at the gate by a well co-ordinated and enthusiastic welcoming committee of smiling children and teachers. On the surface this was no different to any other primary school. A playground, (unusual only in that it was spotless!) and three small prefab buildings.

But this school IS different. It is a segregated school for Roma children. After the furious protests from parents and teachers at the main school in town against Roma children enrolling at the school, the local municipality, in all its infinite wisdom, built this place exclusively for them. Now the mayor and his henchmen can sit back and say that they have done something positive for the Roma community in the area and everyone is happy. Right ?

Wrong. There are so many things wrong with this segregated school idea that I was unsure how to even begin writing this post. It is pretty sickening to think that the racism that led to this situation has gone completely unchallenged. The parents at the main school have won their battle to rid their community of large numbers of Roma children and have been helped to achieve it by the authorities.

Yet again, it is the victims of that racism who are affected. They are sent to this “special” school where the teaching hours are woefully short, 8am until 12.30pm. The teachers, through no fault of their own, are there for a year at best and are then moved somewhere else. As there are only three rooms, children of different ages are taught in the same classroom.

There are 50 children enrolled there but most of the time attendance hovers at around 50%. As one of the teachers there pointed out, it is not their job to find out why a child is absent for three days or more. If my son is absent for three days the teacher calls me to find out why. This is impossible to do when most of the families here have no telephone. They simply do not have the means to check up on them and there are no social workers to cover the school. So the children just don’t turn up or appear sporadically and that’s the end of it. I covered many of the reasons why Roma children have a harder time staying in school once they are enrolled in this post.

Children are enrolled at the age of six into primary education here in Greece. There is NO reason why all children starting school for the first time shouldn’t be able to go to the same school. Instead these Roma kids are separated off, for racist reasons, to a school that has two or three grades in the same room. After spending their first years here, there is little chance that they will be able to go to the main school. The teacher told us that some of them are ready and could move on but only if they are accepted there. Language is a primary reason. There is no training in Greece for teaching Greek as a second language. So Roma children are at a disadvantage to begin with. Add that to the lack of teaching hours, the lack of continuity of teachers, the unwillingness to tackle the racism of the teachers and parents at the main school and it all adds up to a big mess. No wonder the drop out rate is so high with very few Roma children moving on to secondary education (even though it is compulsory)

My conclusion to all this is to tear the place down and work on integrating the children into mainstream school. Train teachers and social workers to work on both sides (with the school and the Roma community) to develop a better attitude to educating ALL children. The children I met there were vibrant and enthusiastic about learning. They were excited to learn a few English words and called “Bye” to us as we left. Why is it so hard for people to see that they are like any other children? They want to have fun, they want to learn, they want to play basketball, they want to show off their art on the walls.

ALL children have potential and they ALL deserve a chance to reach it. It is up to us to find ways of helping them achieve, however hard it might be. They deserve better than to be pushed away into “ghetto” schools and then forgotten about. Another generation of Roma children growing up without the chance of a decent and full education, condemning them to a life with little hope of improving their situation.

It is sad to see so much potential go to waste. To see those ready smiles and know that they will be gone soon. It makes me angry that we can treat our youngest and most vulnerable citizens in this way. And still call ourselves civilised. It’s a disgrace.

[I will state again that this situation is NOT unique to Greece. I happened to have had the chance to see it up close in this country. Thank you to the Greek Helsinki Monitor for organising the visit and for all the tireless work that they are doing here for human rights, particularly on behalf of the Roma communities. The post on my latest visit to Votanikos will follow soon]

UPDATE: Panayote Dimitras of the Greek Helsinki Monitor has confirmed that this school is illegal and that their lawyer, who was arrested while advocating the Roma access to the main school, is awaiting trial.

Votanikos Again

I had meant to write about my latest visit to Votanikos ages ago. Apologies to those who have been waiting for it. I mean that. So why has it been so hard to write about this time round ? To be completely honest with you, I don’t know what to say. I had wanted to be able to at least bring some positive news or some small change in the situation for the people living in this camp. But nothing has changed. It’s still filthy, disgusting, appalling and unthinkable. There is still no water. Eviction still looms. No alternatives have been found or offered by the state. Nothing has changed.

I gave the children their photographs as I had promised them (they were not there on our previous visit). They were thrilled. This tiny gesture brought more smiles and laughs than I have ever seen in some of the rather-spoilt children I know when they are given expensive games and toys.

It is so hard to deal with the feelings that are stirred up when I see this inequality and injustice up close. Especially when it is happening to children. When I looked at the new pictures I took, again I saw my own child in their faces. How can I describe how it feels to see such deprivation and then go home to my privilege ? To walk through the filth and rubbish that is their home and then walk through town with the its lights, decorations and people everywhere shopping (it was just before Christmas) ? To know that there is nothing I can do. Not really. A small gesture here and there. A post on this blog. And to be totally honest, I don’t want to think about it. It’s too hard. But then, I have the luxury to be able to switch off. These kids do not.

Today it’s freezing. There is snow on the mountain and it’s raining on and off. As I am writing this, there are hundreds of cold, hungry children who will be out on the streets selling tissues, collecting rubbish, begging. The settlement will be muddy and life must be that much more miserable. I am imagining that after work has finished, families will be huddled around their very dangerous makeshift wood-burning stoves. Trying to keep warm in a place like this as difficult as trying to keep clean with no running water.

I really cannot find the words to descibe how this community lives. I have tried to put it across in my posts but this is totally inadequate. I have been a visitor, an observer. Able to go home and take a hot shower, to wash of the dirt of this rubbish dump. What I cannot know or imagine is how people can live in this desperate situation and still find it in themselves to smile with a stranger. A stranger who can offer them nothing except a photograph. A stranger who would like them to have what I have but knowing that’s not going to happen.

I cannot know what it is like to live a life like this. And again have to say I am ashamed of us as human beings that we allow this inbalance to exist. We could eliminate poverty. We have the means to do that but not the will. So I have no good news to bring you about the community at Votanikos. No heartwarming anecdotes. It was worse because nothing has changed.

Panayote Dimitras of the Greek Helsinki Monitor informs me that the Mayor visited Votanikos and he is translating what he had to say about it. Perhaps, if more officials do go and see for themselves, they will be moved to do something. I wish I felt more positive about that but I don’t.

Update: The Prefect of Athens (my mistake. I thought it was the Mayor) visited Votanikos and here is what he said:

One picture is worth a thousand words. We are only one kilometer away from the heart of the capital, in the area of Votanikos, and this wretched situation honors no one. On the occasion of today’s visit, I would like to raise awareness of this problem, since the correspondence between various agencies seems to lead nowhere. I take the initiative to brief on this very day the Prefectural Council and then the competent Ministers of Health-Welfare and Interior, since the Prefecture cannot on its own address this problem. In addition, I intend to ask the Mayor of Athens, with whom I believe we will have a good working relationship, to take any necessary action. In other words, to remove tones of garbage from the settlements and to find suitable space for relocating these people to more humane living conditions, with the necessary water and sanitation facilities. We must do what has already been done in the case of other Roma and Kurdish refugee settlements and not allow the perpetuation of this situation.

“and this wretched situation honors no one”

Thank you Panayote Dimitras of the Greek Helsinki Monitor

I hope something will be done….

The Children

This is what it’s all about.
The children.
These children.

Doing what children do.

Playing.

Laughing.

Taking a shower.

Being friends and making friends.

Loving their families.

Living. And being a child.

Surviving.

And very soon they will be evicted.With no place to go. Some have left already and others will be leaving for seasonal jobs.

I hope I can be there to witness and document their plight.

More soon.

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