Calling all Roma Rights Defenders! Volunteers Challenging Digital Antigypsyism Opportunity

20 September 2024

Brussels, 20 September 2024: The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) is recruiting volunteers to counter online racist hate against Roma as part of its Challenging Digital Antigypsyism work. The ERRC and its partners will launch a new phase of monitoring, community action, legal support, and content production against online hate in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia.

The new call for volunteers is part of the EU-funded RISE Project (Roma Inclusion & Support Effort) which brings together the ERRC’s existing volunteer movements with partner organisations in each of the four countries: Albania (Pandezohu & the Roma Women’s Resource Centre), Bulgaria (Equal Opportunities Initiative Association), Romania (ROMAJUST – Association of Roma Lawyers), Serbia (RoMoveIt & INDIGO). 

The new generation of volunteers will learn alongside existing volunteer groups in each country to document online hate speech, create digital content which challenges common anti-Roma narratives, and also learn interview techniques to record oral testimonies from Romani individuals and groups who organise in their communities to create forms of resistance and resilience in the face of hatred.

“Our experience shows that, when given the chance, young people are ready and willing to invest their time in the fight for a more just world. It is our job to help them mobilise, to provide them with the tools they need, and to help them channel their energy and activism against a political environment that is increasingly hostile to human rights” said the ERRC’s Volunteer Programme Coordinator, Milena Ćuk. 

“Romani communities show incredible resilience against hate speech already, whether that is through community education initiatives, protest groups, sports teams, or even content creators and artists. This project will highlight these resilience strategies to hate speech, it will celebrate them, and it will learn from them.”

Aside from the volunteer aspect, the project will also provide victim centred legal support and interest representation to combat hate speech and hate crime in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia. This will involve identifying representative and strategic cases where the ERRC and partners can provide representation through legal procedures or mass complaints before courts and other decision-making bodies. 

Background

The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) has been proactively challenging online hate speech against Roma through its volunteer section since 2020. Over the years our Roma Rights Defenders have worked hard to to shut down hate speech against Roma in the digital sphere in Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey, and Ukraine. By building digital activist communities in their countries, these activists have recorded and reported hate speech on social media platforms, monitored far-right channels, provided evidence for legal action, created counter-narrative content to online racism, and developed actions to stop the spread of misinformation.

Apply to join the project and volunteer via the partner websites below:

Join Pandezohu (Be Panda) in Albania here (deadline to apply 15 October).
Join Equal Opportunities here (deadline to apply 30 September).
Join ROMAJUST in Romania here (deadline to apply 30 September).
Join RoMove It! in Serbia here (deadline to apply 15 October).

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact:

Jonathan Lee
Advocacy & Communications Director
European Roma Rights Centre
jonathan.lee@errc.org  
+32 49 288 7679

 

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the European Comission can be held responsible for them.