1st Advocacy meeting in Romania

The Advocacy meeting (D3.7) was organized by the West University of Timisoara in Buzias, at the headquarters of the Educational Center for Delinquent Minors, in May 30th 2019.
The event was part of a larger event that marked the end of the 2019 Common Spaces in Prison Program, organized within the project.

The event was attended by 15 persons:

• 4 Roma young prisoners from Buzias Center;
• 3 students from WUT, involved in the program as volunteers;
• 8 members of the media (1 person on behalf of a local radio station, 1 person on behalf of a local newspaper, 2 persons on behalf of the regional station of a national television, and 2 persons on behalf of a local television).

The event comprised three distinct sections:

1. A power-point projection of a selection of on-line local newspaper titles referring to actions of persons identified as Roma, with the reactions stemmed within the readers by the title and the materials disseminated by the media. The purpose of this collage was to raise awareness among the media representatives about the stereotypes they reinforce among their public about the negative associations with Roma ethnicity (collective identity, public menace, unwilling to obey the law, contesting authorities etc.).
2. A TV news show-like presentation, organized by the volunteer students, together with Roma young prisoners from Buzias Center, under the supervision of the project team members, in which the youngsters involved in the program provided the media representatives a model of public disclosure about the young Roma prisoners and how they would like to be discussed publicly. The presentation was organized like a TV news show. Each piece of the „news” presented one Roma young prisoner involved in the program (accent on individuality). Obviously, the „news reports” (created by the students and pre-approved by the Roma youngsters from Buzias Center), accentuated the positive and humane qualities of the subjects.
3. A direct interaction of the youngsters with the media representatives (mainly consisting in individual interviews) about their experience within the Common Spaces in Prison program. Young Roma prisoners and students volunteers were interviewed and had the opportunity to tell their stories and assess their participation in the program. The video materials elaborated and broadcasted by the two TV stations present at the event can be consulted at the following links:

Senior Researcher,
Assoc. prof. Baciu Loreni, PhD