ROMEA scholarship recipients motivate Romani primary school pupils to continue their studies in three Czech towns
At the ROMEA organization, the beginning of the school year means starting work on motivational meetings in primary schools. On 13 September a three-day trip was made around the Ústecký Region, where a total of four motivational meetings were held at three primary schools.
The first two meetings were held at a school in Bílina, attended by three recipients of college scholarships from the ROMEA organization. During the discussions they spoke with local pupils not just about their motivation to study and their dreams for the future, but also about how to learn their way around the media world and distinguish the kinds of information about Romani people that the media publish.
“The motivational meetings are not just about studying. We want to also provide the pupils with basic information about the media and increase their literacy when it comes to the media. An innovation that we introduced this school year is a discussion about hate speech, hateful commentaries posted through the Internet, which Romani students encounter frequently. We do not want them to be influenced by such stereotypical and quite often very vulgar opinions, we don’t want the pupils to see them as a barrier to achieving their aims,” says Štefan Balog, the manager of the ROMEA organization’s scholarship program.
Pupils at the Bílina primary school were, in the motivators’ opinion, quite courteous and had an enormous appetite for joining the discussion. The main aim was to demonstrate to them that they do have an opportunity to choose their own futures, even if those close to them or even those running the school itself do not believe that is the case.
On the second day of the trip, the ROMEA scholarship recipients visited the town of Krásná Lípa for a second time, where they motivated pupils at an elementary school. That collaboration was thanks to the Nová škola (New School) organization, which facilitated the meeting.
“The pupils were brilliant, they really got involved in the discussion, they had interesting questions, and eventually they even sang for us. The family of one pupil even invited us to their home, where we discussed other possible activities above and beyond the framework of these meetings,” says Robin Štrobach, a management student at the University of Jan Evangelista Purkyně in Ústí nad Labem.
On the last day, the scholarship recipients visited a primary school in Šluknov, where seventh and eighth-graders were waiting for them. In addition to motivation, they discussed the opportunities available to them by the fact that Germany is quite close, as most of the parents of the pupils who attended the meeting work across the border.
“Each meeting must be adapted content-wise to where we are and what kinds of students are there. We stick to the line we set up in advance, to the presentation, but we never know where the discussion will lead us,” says Vanesa Harvanová, another Romani student at the University of Jan Evangelista Purkyně in Ústí nad Labem.
Such meetings play a quite important role in the ROMEA organization’s scholarship program, as they aid the students with not giving up on their own dreams despite the fact that their own families, society in general, or their schools do not support them as they should. “I’m really glad you all came here to show us that we Roma can be successful too, we can do big things like you are. I would like to be a nurse, and thanks to you I finally believe I can do it,” one of the pupils in Krásná Lípa expressed her enthusiasm over the meeting.
