Amnesty International Maastricht Students

Since..

The subgroup started working in January 2006 with the objective to
1. learn more about the causes of discrimination of Roma in Europe and the connection to Human Rights and Minority Rights
2. launch awareness and information actions in Maastricht

What..

We started as a group of 6 people. The first thing we did was to inform ourselves about the general situation of Roma in Europe, by Internet research, books, watching films together, discussions as well as sharing personal experiences. One of the members did her European Voluntary Service in a Roma integration initiative in Hungary and could tell us about her experiences.

Actions..

Besides informing ourselves, we participated in the Amnesty festivals with infomaterial and posters.

The biggest action we organised was a conference on 26 March 2006 with the title “Gypsies: Stereotypes and Discrimination- The situation of Roma in Europe.” Besides presentations about the situation of Roma in Europe and the Netherlands in particular, we had a panel discussion with different Roma guests from Hungary, Slovakia and Romania as well as a representative from the Roma-Gadje Dialogue Through Service Initiative (Gadje is the Roma word for non-Roma).

Another successful action was the movie night at the Lumiere, where we showed the film "Shutka, Book of Records" (about Roma in Macedonia) with an introduction and a discussion afterwards with Dr. Morag Goodwin from the Law Faculty of Maastricht University.

Future..

• Establish better contact to local organizations (such as Trajekt), but also to Roma organization in the Region (such as Aachen)
• Establish a partnership program with a project in Hungary