Elvis Shakjiri from Romalitiko and the ABAJA initiative at the panel discussion “Social Justice and Discrimination: Too many people on the margins of society and politics… Until when?” Organized by CIVIL stressed that when it comes to the Roma community, foreign donors and the NGO sector help, not the state, and that this must change.

“In thе last period, with the pandemic, we managed to give hundreds of electronic devices to Roma children so that they can be included in the educational process, we are facing another problem and that is that families do not have electricity. In our society, there is always a talk about how to include the margins, and not what benefit can be had,” said Shakjiri.

According to him, the state does not create conditions in general, regardless of the category of people.

“Unfortunately we can not reach all the families, the problems are systemic, you will solve one problem, then another appears. We asked for meetings with state institutions, but our society always has other priorities, to solve those problems of the elites, the problem is rarely solved without going to a systemic solution, through PR they make it seem like a big job, it is a general problem with us, those problems should be solved systematically,” Shakjiri said.

He adds that children who do not have the conditions for online teaching must go and physically attend school, which increases the risk of COVID-19.

“We have two types of discrimination in everyday life between individuals, we have more complex discrimination from the state, it does not take any steps. In this case, the state, in some way, given that it does not take systemic solutions, encourages individuals to treat certain groups in this way”, he added.