I'm a Roma woman and I live in Cluj-Napoca. On December 17, 2010, the police came to evacuate us from Coastei Street, above the Octavian Goga library.
This happened a few days before Christmas. We were moved near the garbage dump, close to Pata Rât. It was winter and along with me, hundreds of other people were evacuated, forced, and from then on we were forced to live there.
In a similar situation to ours was the Canton community which was also made over the years with forced evictions from different parts of Cluj. It seemed like the time to give up, but we did not give up, on the contrary. We organized ourselves better, we organized ourselves as an association and we started to create contacts, connections and we started to demand our rights, the right to have a dignified life, the right to be relocated back to the city and the right to a good future for our children who lived and were born in the city of Cluj-Napoca and lived there from generation to generation.
15 years ago, when I met the children from the Rampă community, I realized that those children had no dreams, I realized that those children had never seen a playground in their lives, I realized that those children had no access to education, I realized that they had no place to play. Then, at that moment, I realized that our history of the Roma still continues to affect a lot of families that are not few, they so, so many. I felt a lot of pain, but from then on, it was like all these injustices and all the bad things that were happening and that I saw and I was shocked because Cluj-Napoca I led a normal life, decent housing, with all the city's amenities.
I suddenly arrived in that place, I started to know and see poverty at its worst, and to see little children who don't know what it means to have a dream. Then, I felt it was time to do something. I started working with several associations, NGOs.
Of course, more people came to support us. I couldn't do all this alone, because you can't. I started working with the Intercommunity Development Association of the Cluj Metropolitan Area (ADI).
We thought of a pilot project through which we had to cover the needs of the community in the Pata Rât area. There are four distinct communities in the Pata Rât area: the Canton community, the Dallas community, the Coastei community and the Rampă community.
We didn't do that pilot, that pilot project on our own. The community was consulted, we identified the real needs that those people needed. Since then, since 2013, the children in the Rampă community have started to have access to education.
The first generation in their family! We started supporting those children with everything they needed so they have access to education. Of course, the project covered many areas, but these two themes were the most important.
The education of children, who have never had access to education, and we would focus very much on housing. Decent housing. In Romania, in different cities of the country, this spatial segregation is practiced a lot: where the Roma communities begin, the running water ends, the electricity ends, the asphalt ends and the public transportation ends, so.. everything’s done by the book! That is why I strongly support that access to decent housing should not be a privilege.
Regardless of ethnicity, skin color, sexual orientation or whoever you are, this should be a fundamental right of all citizens.
As I said, another important area was housing. We started buying housing under the project from the free market.
We bought homes in Cluj-Napoca and the Cluj metropolitan area. Today, over 110 families from the Pata Rât area and over 500 people have moved in. No one deserves to live in these marginalized and Middle Age areas, where you no longer have access to anything, you are cut off from reality and information.
I have a piece of advice for those who work with Roma communities. If they think and agree, we can make our methodology available to them, our projects that we have carried out and that I personally, as a former resident of the Pata Rât community, currently a new resident of the city of Cluj-Napoca, can say that those projects are and will be a success. Because I have never done anything for them without them. I mean, nothing for Roma without Roma.
Maybe as you saw the pictures behind me, I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that after moving into the new apartments, people were very happy and were at peace with themselves because they knew that by having a decent home, they could offer their children a better life and a better future as well. I believe that integration starts from the beginning with a decent home.
Because if you have a decent home, then you can access a good job, you can have access to education and you can do a lot of other things. Is this justice? I don't know. Let the philosophers say it.
I say it's just a righting of an injustice.
Thank you.
