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Working together all of us can bring a prosperous world
to the children! "HELP
THE CHILDREN"
Electronic
Newsletter of
The Children's Human Rights Centre of Albania - (CRCA) Financed by UK Department for International Development
Humanitarian Office (DFID) This Electronic Newsletter is received by more than 350
Albanian and Foreign NGO's, international organisations and agencies,
state bodies, donors individuals and other partners of CRCA. If you
would like to publish your news, reports, announcements, invitations or
other documents concerning children's rights or issues, please contact
with CRCA. # 77 – 28 / 02 / 2000
#1 - 19/05/1999 ************************************************************************************************************** - PROFILE 2000
"ROMA CHILDREN'S CENTRE BELGRADE" ************************************************************************************************************** - UNICEF STATEMENT on Street Children ************************************************************************************************************** - CRCA NEW REPORT ABOUT ROMA CHILDREN IN ALBANIA -SOON ************************************************************************************************************** - OVERVIEW OF
CRCA ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ************************************************************************************************************** NGO
FOCUS "ROMA CHILDREN'S
CENTRE BELGRADE"
We wish to present ourselves to you. We are The Roma's
Children Centre founded on August 31, 1999 in Belgrade. The founders and the co-operators of Roma Children Center
(R.C.C.) have at the beginning worked voluntarily with Roma children and
women and so later on their activity was extended to working on the
project of "NUR". This project is of nurturing and educational
nature and being as it was carried out in the district of Obrenovac and its
surroundings, and it was done by "The Fund for Open Society".
The continuation of this project is underway. The R.C.C. was founded as Non - Governmental Organisation
(NGO) for Roma women, children and refugees. During current activities of
this Centre we had 54 women (mothers and grandmothers), 14 young girls and
82 children. The additional classes and workshops which this Center
organized include 82 young girls and boys, that is to say: -38 Roma refugees children from Kosovo -40 local Roma children from different parts around
Belgrade -4 children from a Hostel for abandoned children, called
"Mosa Pijade" In this Centre we hold 4-5 workshops for girls, 12
educative and 4 creative workshops for young girls and boys per month. The
staff of this Center had also hold twice a month educative workshop for
mothers and grandmothers. The staff of this Centre together with the
recently recruited volunteers do hold 396 hours of additional classes
monthly (working six days a week),in which we in our programme include the
official school programme. The additional classes, we hold for children of
6-17 years of age. In this Centre about 60 individuals talks of support,
with the children are being held monthly as well as 25-30 talks are being
held with those who have survived violence. As result of the increasing racial impatience against
Roma in general, members of the Team Centre and the volunteers had to
organize the accompany every day, to and from, those children who came to
the Centre, during the whole months of November and December in 1999. The
Team Members of this Center do go out to the field 2-3 times per week.
There we visit the parent with whom we work with, contact the teachers,
the pedagogues and the psychologists from the schools we work with, as
well as from the Center for social work. We are co-operating with the following NGO's in YU: -Autonomous Women Center Against Sexual Violence -Women in Black -SOS telephone for women and children, victims of
violence -YU Volunteer's Center -Group "Most"-"Bridge" -Women in action -Community for advancement of Roma settlement -RIC-Kragujevac -Society "Rom", Belgrade -Women's Roma Center "Bibija" -Yugoslavian Center for the Rights of the Children -IOCC -Bread of Life The members of the R.C.C. Team have attended different
seminaries: -Summer Feminist School in Laktasi, in summer 1999 -International Conference of Women in Black, held in
Ulcinj from 7th to 10th October 1999 -Seminary for Roma Organisation, within organization of
Yugoslavian Red Cross in Belgrade from 8th to 10th
November 1999 -Voluntary management for Roma Organisation within YU
Voluntary Centre in Belgrade from 27th to 28th
November 1999. We are young organisation, and we are dealing with very
difficult problems. In the roots of many of these problems are strong
racial prejudice against Roma population in our society. Our financial
situation is very hard - Roma population is poor, and the Roma is
generally live on the brim or edge of the city. Women and children, the
refugees from Kosova, are even in a harder situation. In order for them to
arrive here to us, we have to pay for their transport. Unfortunately,
often we are not in position to do it, and that means discontinuation of
our work... But, members of our Team are members of different races,
nations and religion. We are to your help and cooperation, for your ideas
and advice. Every information about activities with Roma children is
welcomed. Our Centre communicates in Serbian, Roma, English and
French languages- we are looking forward to contacts and future
cooperation with you. Contact "ROMA
CHILDREN'S CENTRE BELGRADE" Address:
Djevdjelijska 13, Belgrade 11000, Yugoslavia
Phone: + 311 / 11
/ 404-055 E-mail:
derocent@EUnet.yu UNICEF
STATEMENT on Street Children
More than 100 million children are growing up alone,
propelled by poverty into sex, slavery and a life on the streets, the
United Nations said on Wednesday. Whether orphaned by AIDS, abused by adults or stolen for
profit, the world's children are increasingly growing up without the
security of a family, the United Nations said. ``Deprived of their rights and forced to live as adults
in their formative years, children growing up alone suffer some of the
most acute risks of childhood damage,'' the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) said in a report. ``The situation is all the more severe because it is
hidden. Hidden because the children are often invisible. Locked behind the
doors of private homes, workshops, sex parlors or institutions and hidden
because far too little is known about the impact of growing up alone on
their lives,'' it said. UNICEF launched the report at an all-day conference in
London and called on the British government to take the lead among donor
nations in helping home-alone children. UNICEF said the underlying cause of ``this
growing-up-alone epidemic'' was the poverty endured by millions of
families in Africa, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe,
reinforced by war and the high death toll from AIDS. In its report, the children's agency said it was
impossible to put a precise figure on the number of children growing up
alone, since so many were hidden or trapped. ``Any credible estimate of children 'alone' suggests that
their numbers must run to well over 100 million,'' UNICEF said. Some might be sold, others scavenge for food. Girls may
become sex slaves, boys might play at soldiers. Orphans can grow up
unloved, even those at home can live without protection from abuse. ``A baby abandoned on a doorstep; a child lost when her
parents fled their home; a girl sent to skivvy in someone else's
household; a boy with a one-way ticket into town; the child in an
orphanage; a teenager in detention: all these are children growing up
alone,'' it said. ``Such children are routinely found on the streets of
Lusaka and Calcutta, in the killing fields of Kosova and Angola, in the
childcare institutions of China and Romania, in private homes in Brazil
and Tanzania,'' said UNICEF. ``Whether they are orphaned, unaccompanied,
living on the street or working in servitude, their alone-ness is at the
heart of their predicament.'' UNICEF urged Britain, along with charities, companies,
donors and other international bodies, to support an 18-month campaign
aimed at protecting those at risk of missing childhood. It urged government to give greater aid, more debt relief
and establish a children's commissioner. Companies should avoid child
labor, while professionals were asked to join the fight against AIDS and
its devastating impact on children. Source of
Information: Reuters CRCA
NEW REPORT ABOUT ROMA CHILDREN IN ALBANIA -SOON
Would you like to know more about ROMA CHILDREN in
Albania? A report concerning issues on ROMA CHILDREN is
currently being prepared by Children's Human Rights Centre in partnership
with Save the Children - Albania. We have recently completed visits to five
Albanian cities Berat, Gjirokastra,Tirana Shkodra,Fier and Korça. The report will be published sometime next month. For all of you who would like to receive a copy of the report on ROMA CHILDREN issues in Albania (text format) please don't hesitate to request a copy via e-mail from CRCA.
Overview
of Electronic Newsletter
This Electronic
Newsletter is prepared by S.Thornton Barkley and Altin Hazizaj
of The Children's Human Rights Centre of Albania - CRCA. The opinions
expressed in this electronic publication do not necessarily represent the
policies or opinions of the CRCA.
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