156 images Created 2 Feb 2011
Bulgaria's Unwanted
In the year 2005 in Sofia, Bulgaria, an unprecedented effort by the Central and South-Eastern governments started as the "Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015", to join effort in making improvements to the socio-economic status of the Roma population within Europe.
Half way into this initiative, I journeyed to Sofia, the very city where was to began a new era of tolerance and acceptance for the Roma to look for signs of improvements in their lives.
Unfortunately, I had to go to Fakulteta Mahala, the largest Roma ghetto in Sofia to encounter Bulgaria's Roma population. Bulgaria is the European country with one of the highest percentage of Roma population with 5% of Roma, yet Roma are hardly visible outside the Roma ghetto of the city.
The ghetto is totally separated, a world quite apart from the rest of the city with shops, church and school totally segregated. Normal city services, like waste collection, road management, transport does not reach the ghetto. Ordinary Bulgarians do not enter the ghetto.
The reality is that for most Roma, improvements have hardly reached them.
Half way into this initiative, I journeyed to Sofia, the very city where was to began a new era of tolerance and acceptance for the Roma to look for signs of improvements in their lives.
Unfortunately, I had to go to Fakulteta Mahala, the largest Roma ghetto in Sofia to encounter Bulgaria's Roma population. Bulgaria is the European country with one of the highest percentage of Roma population with 5% of Roma, yet Roma are hardly visible outside the Roma ghetto of the city.
The ghetto is totally separated, a world quite apart from the rest of the city with shops, church and school totally segregated. Normal city services, like waste collection, road management, transport does not reach the ghetto. Ordinary Bulgarians do not enter the ghetto.
The reality is that for most Roma, improvements have hardly reached them.
