Roma Families Return to Ukraine: Challenges in Education and Employment

Many Roma families who had previously left Ukraine because of the war decided to return. This also applies to large families.

This was reported on the air of Intent.Insight by Tatiana Farima, the coordinator of the Roma development of the Charitable Foundation "Winds of Change".

"Now there are families with many children, and they are returning. It's true, they are coming back. A lot of people go looking for work, want to settle down at home. And children are enrolled in school," she said.

Yulia Hladka, a communicator of the Charitable Foundation "Winds of Change" and coordinator of the Women's Leadership Development Program, spoke about the problems of Roma families in accessing education and social services.

According to her, one of the main problems is the language barrier. The Roma language has many dialects, as there are different groups within the community. She noted that it is similar to the difference between Ukrainian dialects - for example, between the southern and western ones, where even individual words can be completely different. The situation is the same with the Roma language. Unfortunately, teachers in schools are mostly unprepared to work with Roma children, lacking basic knowledge of the language or culture. This often leads to misunderstanding and sometimes discrimination.

Another serious problem is the lack of access to preschool education. Many children from large families do not attend kindergartens. There are several reasons for this: First, there are long waiting lists in communities.

"For example, in Hradenytsi, there was a Roma family where two women had 19 children. They were aged from one year old to about 11-10 years old. And when we visited them, I always said, "You shouldn't go to a kindergarten, you should invite educators to your place, because in fact you already have a whole group of children. And although it looks funny, it's actually a very big problem, because to get into a kindergarten, to stand in line, you have one child, and it's hard, and when you have 4 or 3 children of about the same age, it's extremely difficult," Hladkaya said.

Second, going to kindergarten is a financial burden that not every family can afford. Many do not have a stable income. The situation is complicated by men's fear of mobilization. Although many Roma men are defending Ukraine, there are those who, like many other citizens, are afraid to go to the front. This affects both employment and overall family stability.

According to the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, the last All-Ukrainian census indicated that 47,587 Roma lived in Ukraine. It should be noted that the last full-fledged census took place in 2001. In January 2020, an estimate of the country's population was also made, but it did not include the population of Crimea and the Joint Forces Operation area.

According to NGOs, by 2022, the number of Roma in Ukraine will have increased to 200-400 thousand. The largest communities are in Zakarpattia, Odesa, Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Dnipro regions.

Ірина Глухова