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Education
Still Pipedream for Gypsies in Greece
By Wes Jonasson
Inter Press Service
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 ATHENS,
Mar 24 (IPS) - Two women sit on a bench outside an Orthodox
Church, their children running around them, in the Agi Varvara
neighbourhood of Piraeus, close to the Greek capital. |
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The
women are Greek Gypsy, or Roma. They are in all likelihood
illiterate and likely to remain that way for the rest of their
lives.
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What
this means is that should their children beat the odds and
enter the school system, the mothers will be unable to help
with the homework. Agia Varvara is the most affluent Gypsy
community in Greece, yet not one Gypsy woman here is on record
as having completed secondary school.
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Paula
Karadana, who instructs volunteers on how to teach the Greek
language to Gypsies, is critical of the failure of the government
to make education more accessible to the community. She says
that while there has been some talk of this issue, nothing
has materialised.
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In
the early 1980's Karadana worked with volunteers to establish
a social centre for minorities including Gypsies in the inner-city
slum of Metaxoyrgeio. A new building replaced the old only
last year.
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Karadana
says there were never enough volunteers and those that came
had no training and were not familiar with Gypsies or their
way of life. ''We made mistakes. Wounds were made. It took
time to overcome this and to be accepted as a person who really
wanted to help,'' she said.
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In
the beginning the children were difficult to control in the
classroom. They were not used to discipline and routine and
were easily swayed and distracted by older unemployed teenagers
bent on disruption. In time, however, they settled down and
some even managed to get into the school system, says Karadana.
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She
says the centre recently held a seminar for public school
teachers in an effort to try and change the negative attitudes
towards Gypsies. The problem, says Karadana, is that the teachers
simply do not want Gypsies in their classrooms.
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However,
Stella Stassinopoulou, a fourth year education major at Athens
University who plans to teach primary school children, does
not agree that there should be a special programme established
to educate the Gypsies.
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She
says the problem is basically that Gypsy children are impossible
to teach as they generally refuse to sit still and want to
be free to run around outside. Many teachers would agree with
this assessment.
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However
Panagiotis Dragatis and Christina Chronopoulou, who work at
the youth centre in the suburb of Ano Liosia, disagree.
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The
centre is located in a poor community of Gypsies, migrant
Albanians, Russians and others seeking work in Greece. It
offers a pre-school programme aimed at preparing young children
to enter the school system.
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Dragatis
and Chronopoulou admit that there were initial problems and
they feared for their safety in the seemingly uncompromising
neighbourhood where the children were ''wild beyond belief''.
However, they said they had learnt to handle the situation
by the trial and error method.
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The
teachers said their greatest achievement has been winning
the trust of Romas who have been sending their children to
the centre in steady numbers.
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Last
year, Ano Liosia, and all of western Athens, was hit by an
earthquake which brought down apartments, shops, and hundreds
of makeshift dwellings which had served as homes for the Romas.
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Consequently,
this already economically depressed community was hard hit
and many were forced to pack-up and move elsewhere. Many of
those who remained also preferred to send their children into
the streets to earn money rather than back to school.
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Dragatis
and Chronopoulou said the best results are obtained if they
combine the Greek language classes with sports, plays, crafts,
and other ''fun'' activities.
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However
there are other issues facing those who do manage to make
it to public school. Keeping them in school can become a major
problem, especially as from the age of 11 both Roma boys and
girls are eligible for marriage and most do get married.
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Dragatis
and Chronopoulou say they often visit their ''lost'' pupils
at home to try and get them to return to class but without
much success.
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According
to Christina Rougheri, the Roma coordinator of the Greek Helsinki
Monitor there are two schools of thought with regard to Gypsies.
There are those who believe that Greek Gypsies, also called
Tsiganes, are gradually being assimilated into the mainstream,
a process, however, that may take years.
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Then
there are others, Rougheri says, who are of the opinion that
Gypsies are a distinct race with a culture and a language
and should be treated as such.
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The
reality is that education is still not visible in the crystal
ball of the lives of most Gypsies and probably will not be
for some time yet.
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This article
is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced provided
that Inter Press Service is credited. |
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