{"id":25763,"date":"2017-11-21T08:29:58","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T08:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=25763"},"modified":"2017-11-22T08:49:43","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T08:49:43","slug":"bulgaria-breaking-vicious-cycle-romani-children-florian-ripka-maria-lozano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/11\/21\/bulgaria-breaking-vicious-cycle-romani-children-florian-ripka-maria-lozano\/","title":{"rendered":"BULGARIA : Breaking the vicious cycle for Romani children &#8211; Florian Ripka and Maria Lozano"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>BULGARIA<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Breaking <\/strong><strong>the vicious cycle for Romani children<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cIf we don\u2019t do anything, the fate of the Romani children will be sealed,\u201d Salesian Father Martin Jilek from Stara Zagora in Central Bulgaria, 230 kilometres to the east of the capital of Sofia, said. \u201cThey are married off by their clan when they are fourteen. Then they have children early on and live off child benefit, which is about 40 leva per month and child.\u201d That is equivalent to about 20 euros \u2013 the only source of income for many Romani families.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Around 28,000 Roma live in Stara Zagora, most of these children and adolescents. They live in shacks, run-down houses or the shells of unfinished buildings. In Bulgaria, around a million people are said to belong to the Romani people. No exact numbers are known. They live in a parallel society. Clan structures are opaque to those on the outside. The Romani people are despised, hated and banned from public life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The resentment is so great that even Bulgarians who have a slightly darker skin tone and thus look like the Roma have a hard time getting jobs. The Roma generally only achieve a rudimentary level of education, if any. They do not receive any apprenticeship training. For this reason, many Roma fall into unemployment and a life of petty crime. This, in turn, strengthens the clich\u00e9s and creates even more obstacles. The only source of income that remains is the child benefit. Children are seen as a \u201clife insurance policy\u201d \u2013 and another step towards complete impoverishment: it is a vicious cycle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Father Martin and his confr\u00e8res are not content to leave things as they are. With the support of the international charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), they have established a branch right in the middle of the Romani district and want to offer them better opportunities. Father Martin knows just how this can be done: \u201cThis is only possible through the children. The adults are practically inaccessible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>\u201cFor many, it already comes as a surprise when we address them by their names\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Salesians have, for example, set up a kind of after-school homework programme, which offers so much more. The children come after school, eat together, play and learn. Elementary rules of etiquette are also taught to them there. \u201cWhen the children have been with us for a few weeks,\u201d Father Martin said, \u201cthey start saying \u2018please\u2019 and \u2018thank you\u2019. They also calm down and stop being so hyper.\u201d Many don\u2019t get any attention at home from their parents. They roam the streets, are avoided by other pupils. \u201cFor many, it already comes as a surprise when we address them by their names,\u201d Father Martin said. \u201cWe take time for the children. The parents are quick to find out about it, and they then suddenly turn up here as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>The workday never ends for the Salesians of Stara Zagora. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>In their monastery, Roma comes and go at all hours. They come to attend Holy Mass, carry out small everyday tasks, seek advice or just pay a visit. The Salesians want to do a lot more. A food bank is also planned. \u201cThis will give us the opportunity to talk to the people. We want to convince them to send their children to our school.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This, however, is the main problem: many parents do not allow their children to receive a higher level of education than primary school. Because if they did, they would not be able to marry them off immediately. \u201cIt is hard work to convince the parents that it is better to have completed training or even have a university degree than to just draw child benefit,\u201d Father Martin said. However, the first successes have already been achieved. \u201cMany Roma now know us and understand that we mean them no harm.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>This is an example of the impact of one the projects supported by ACN: the construction of the church and the spiritual centre of the Salesians in the Roma settlement in Stara Zagora. <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>Florian Ripka and Maria Lozano &#8211; ACN International<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BULGARIA Breaking the vicious cycle for Romani children \u00a0 \u201cIf we don\u2019t do anything, the fate of the Romani children will be sealed,\u201d Salesian Father Martin Jilek from Stara Zagora in Central Bulgaria, 230 kilometres to the east of the capital of Sofia, said. \u201cThey are married off by their clan when they are fourteen&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25841,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - 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