WHAT ARE THE GATHERINGS?
The Roma Women Students Gatherings of Catalonia are an annual event, where Roma girls and women of different ages come together to discuss educational issues and find solutions to the educational problems they face.
WHEN DO THEY TAKE PLACE?
The gatherings take place once or twice a year, on a Saturday afternoon. They are held in an educational centre in a neighbourhood or city where there is a large Roma community and a group of women who wish to organise the meeting in their area.
HOW ARE THEY ORGANISED?
The role of our association in these meetings is to offer support in the technical and logistical aspects to an “organising committee” made up of Romany women from the neighbourhoods that organise and promote them. This driving group chooses a specific theme and proposes Roma women from their immediate environment that serve as role-models.
HOW ARE THEY STRUCTURED?
- Inaugural table.
- Conference on the scientific evidence of the chosen theme.
- Table of role-models.
- Discussion of the theme in working groups.
- Presentation of the conclusions. Subsequently, these conclusions will be sent to institutions and organisations in order to have a political impact.
HOW DID THEY ORIGINATE?
The first of these meetings was held in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat in 2000, with only two participants; a Roma girl and her mother. This humble action was the seed of this activity and the following year, during a meeting between some Roma mothers and tudents, they asked us to continue holding it.
On the 30th of November of 2001, we organized the workshop “Roma Women of Barcelona in the 21st century” in which more than 70 participants were motivated by a common interest: to work so that the voices of Roma women would be heard and taken into account in all the different citizen and community spaces, whether educational, work-related, health-related or linked to social participation.
These were the precedents for what would later become one of the organisation’s most successful and distinctive activity: the “Roma Women Students Gatherings of Catalonia”.
In this link you can download the Conclusions of the 20th Roma Women Student Gathering.
You can read more information about the last Gathering in the following article
