CRP Sisak has finished its last activity within the project “Building Capacity of the Roma Civil Society Organisations in the Sisak-Moslavina County” by visiting the Croatian National Parliament on 25th November 2013.
Fourteen representatives of the Roma CSOs and their members from the Sisak – Moslavina County, Presidents of the Sisak Councils of Roma national minority, project partner and CRP visited the Parliament to meet with the Member of the Parliament for national minorities, Veljko Kajtazi and to introduce themselves with institution of the Parliament, its national history and work.
During the meeting with Mr. Kajtazi, the Romani language and Romani dialects were discussed. The Romani language includes a group of different dialects because of the Roma way of nomadic living. Mr. Kajtazi advocates the Roma language “Romano cib”. He said that it was a universal language and other dialects, such as “Bayash”, could not be recognised and used as official languages, despite of the fact that a huge number of Roma in Croatia speak “Bayash”.
Our representatives are against this attitude, because of the fact that in the Roma community Capraske poljane in Sisak most of the people speak Bayash, as well as Roma in Medjimurje. That is the reason why the Bayash dialect should become more official, i.e. put more in use in every day communication, different publications, conferences, etc.
The Roma social problems were also discussed. Mr. Kajtazi said that his priority in the remaining two-year mandate was finding funds for the continuation of funding of Roma education in the private secondary school KOTVA d.o.o. in Petrinja and also to deal with the problem of new law regulations on the market of secondary raw materials that were rigorous and directly influenced on Roma, because they could not meet those new conditions.
After the meeting, the Roma representatives had one hour for sight-seeing of the Parliament with the parliament guide.