News

Canadian diplomatic delegation has visited the Municipality of Elin Pelin to get in touch with the state of the local Roma community and the main challenges for establishing the politics for Roma integration. The diplomats talked with the habitants from the neighborhoods  in the villages of Lesnovo and  Doganovo and met the representatives of the local authority, volunteers from the \"Amalipe\"  Youth club leaded by Anelia Dudinova, Roma activists and informal leaders. The Canadians asked questions about education, discrimination cases, the percentage of Roma people without ID documents and what are the actions of the local authority in those cases. The guests learned that there are big differences among the Roma neighborhoods. The Roma people who live in the village of Lesnovo from many generations so far, are educated and many of them have secondary education. Some of them have even higher education. The youngsters shared their dreams for the future and everyone of them thinks about continuing his education in the university and having good job after that. They mentioned that the young Roma people have difficulty in seeking job in comparison with their coevals. Regarding the mandatory experience for newly specialists,  the Roma youngsters sometimes meet problems with their ethnicity while seeking job. Thus, they are forced to hide the fact from which village they come, because it\'s known that the village habitants are mostly Roma.

Significantly poorer is the local community in the village of Doganovo. There were several cases of people without ID documents in the recent past, but now everyone has documents and address registration in the Municipality.

The topic about migration abroad was very expected. The Roma activists shared that the Roma people in the Municipality migrate because of the seasonal labor for 4 - 5 months in the year. The savings made abroad are used for house repair activities in Bulgaria, some spend their money starting small business owing to the closeness with the Municipality of Sofia. The countries, in which the Roma people work, are in Western Europe. Even removing the requirement for visa for Canada, migration across the Ocean is still less possible: the distance is big and requires lots of money, which is not reasonable for seasonal labor.

The diplomatic visit in the Municipality of Elin Pelin was organized by Center \"Amalipe\" by request from the Canadian embassy in the city of Bucharest. The delegation discussed the Roma questions also with representatives from the Trust for Social Achievement.

The Canadian diplomats visited Bulgaria for discussions about the removal of Canadian visas for the Bulgarian citizens. They met the Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria Mr. Boyko Borisov and representatives of Bulgarian institutions.