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This exhibition was created in 2000.
For current information about OSI's Roma programs, please
see www.soros.org/initiatives/roma.
The Roma today are the most threatened ethnic group
in Central and Eastern Europe. They face discrimination
in education, health care, housing and employment. The
Romani populations across the region suffer routine
and widespread abuse of their fundamental human rights,
and the level of racially-motivated violence directed
against them remains alarmingly high.
Even where the transition from communist rule has been
marked by a process of democratic consolidation, developments
within civil society have been characterized by the
exclusion of the Roma from effective participation.
Despite encouraging signs of the growing sophistication
of demands for Roma rights at local, national and transnational
levels, the continued exclusion of Europe's most significant
ethnic minority from meaningful and effective participation
in political processes registers as perhaps the most
critical of democratic deficits in the region.
The Open Society Institute and other organizations
in the Soros foundations network have developed a number
of initiatives aiming to empower Roma to take charge
of their lives, to use their own resources to become
more self-sufficient, to participate in those decisions
that affect them, and to demand that states recognize
them as equal, rights-bearing citizens in the democratic
process.
This exhibition is presented by the Office of Communications
and the Roma
Participation Program
(RPP) at the Open
Society Institute-Budapest. It consists
of two series of photographs commissioned by the RPP:
"The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe" by Rolf Bauerdick
was featured in the June 1999 issue of the RPP Reporter,
and "Challenging Segregation" by Jason Orton will appear
in a forthcoming issue of the Reporter in the
second half of 2000.
Included throughout the exhibition are links to articles
from past issues of the Reporter, to information
about Soros
foundations network Roma programs, and to external
websites with information about the Roma. All of the
links on these pages, along with a number of additional
links, have been collected on the exhibition's Roma
Links page. All links have been selected
by the Office of Communications, with the advice of
the RPP. OSI-Budapest is not responsible for the content
of the external websites included on these pages.
We welcome your comments about the exhibition.
Please write to info@osi.hu.
The Roma Participation Program may be
contacted at rpp@osi.hu.
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