Seeing the Roma Without Prejudice

Project activities will focus on capacity building for NGOs and community leaders; professional development of Roma journalists; building bridges between Roma and non-Roma journalists and media outlets and between Roma communities and the media; and production of high quality news and cultural features on Roma people for publication and broadcast. The objectives of these activities are that:

• Roma NGOs and community groups will be better able to use the mainstream and specialist media to inform Roma people of their human rights and how to secure them, and to present a fairer, more balanced view of Roma culture and life to the majority population as a means of overcoming suspicion and segregation;
• Roma journalists will be better equipped to cover Roma issues - particularly human rights issues - for both the specialist media (providing Roma communities with information about their rights and a forum for discussion) and mainstream media (informing the general population about the plight of Roma people and encouraging engagement with the issues as a means of supporting the development of stable, prosperous societies as a whole); and
• the mainstream media will be better equipped to provide more sympathetic and balanced coverage of Roma people, issues and culture, in order to help overcome the widespread suspicion of, and antipathy towards, Roma people.

Roma journalists will receive professional training and the opportunity to produce and distribute features on issues of concern to the communities they represent. They will also have the opportunity to have contact with other Roma journalists, Roma community representatives and mainstream media outlets.

Specific strategies include the following.

• Roma Media Relations handbook - a tool published by MDI for Roma NGOs planning media strategies will be translated into Albanian and Macedonian languages;
• Roma Media Communications Skills Workshops - each with 15 participants from Roma NGOs, which will provide theoretical and practical training aimed at the NGOs to get their message across more powerfully and effectively;
• On-site Broadcast Media Consultant - an expert on broadcast media will undertake consultancy programmes with up to 10 media organisations over a period of five months. Working on-site, backed up by telephone and email contact, the consultant will work with the media organisations on solutions to problems which they have identified.
• Team Reporting Projects - comprising eight-person teams of journalists (Roma and non-Roma) will each work for 10-days, to produce radio features on Roma issues in the region. The aim is to fill the need for high-quality broadcast news and current affairs programmes on Roma issues for non-Roma audiences.
• News Agency Diversity Reporting Programme - News-agency journalists from the region will attend a training workshop, following which they will research and produce articles and features on Roma issues. The articles will be marketed and distributed throughout the region to ensure the widest possible circulation. The aim is to fill the need for high-quality print features and articles exploring Roma rights and culture, both for a Roma audience but, in particular, for a more general audience in order to increase understanding of, and tolerance towards, Roma communities.

Examples of the media produced may be found on the MDI website.

Media Diversity, Rights.

According to the project website, there is a need to increase media coverage about and from the Roma community, as a means to reducing discrimination. The project aims to benefit Roma community groups who are empowered to make their voices heard; Roma journalists, and non-Roma journalists who want to learn professional techniques for covering Roma/ diversity/ human rights issues and news stories. More indirectly, it is expected that Roma communities will benefit from receiving information on their rights and how to secure them, as well as having the opportunity to have their voices heard both in the specialist Roma media and in the mainstream media.