Bulgarian Roma across the country will celebrate International Roma Day today. April 8th, the International Day of the Roma, is a day of celebration of Roma culture, history and traditions and also draws attention to discrimination directed against Roma and Gypsy communities around the world, calling for all human rights to be respected and observed.
The day was officially declared in 1990 in Serock, Poland, the site of the fourth World Romani Congress of the International Romani Union (IRU) in honor of the first major international meeting of Romani representatives held on 7th to 12th of April, 1971 in Chelsfield near London. Today, thirty years on, Roma communities from all over Bulgaria will mark April 8th with festivals, dance performances, concerts and tournaments, held in a number of Bulgarian towns and cities.
International Roma Day will be celebrated in several schools included in the 3-year program to reduce the number of Roma children becoming early drop-outs. Prime Minister Boyko Borisov will take part in the ceremony marking the day, which is organized by the National Council for Partnership on Ethnic and Demographic Issues, Chaired by Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov. The Speaker of the Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, will also be in attendance.
At a more formal level, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, recently issued an eight-month deadline on Member States to come up with their national plans for Roma integration and inclusion, while on 6th April, the US Ambassador to Sofia, James Warlick, lectured on Roma integration and ethnic tolerance in the Bulgarian Black Sea capital of Varna. The University in the central city of Veliko Tarnovo and the Roma Center "Amalipe" are organising an information campaign including the massacre of Roma in Nazi concentration camps during World War II and a photography exhibit.
The most wide-spread theory is that Roma first came to Bulgaria around the 11th-12th century through the Byzantine Empire. The mass influx that led to today's Roma population, however, began with the Ottoman rule, when many Roma arrived in the footsteps of the Turkish army.
The day was officially declared in 1990 in Serock, Poland, the site of the fourth World Romani Congress of the International Romani Union (IRU) in honor of the first major international meeting of Romani representatives held on 7th to 12th of April, 1971 in Chelsfield near London. Today, thirty years on, Roma communities from all over Bulgaria will mark April 8th with festivals, dance performances, concerts and tournaments, held in a number of Bulgarian towns and cities.
International Roma Day will be celebrated in several schools included in the 3-year program to reduce the number of Roma children becoming early drop-outs. Prime Minister Boyko Borisov will take part in the ceremony marking the day, which is organized by the National Council for Partnership on Ethnic and Demographic Issues, Chaired by Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov. The Speaker of the Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, will also be in attendance.
At a more formal level, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, recently issued an eight-month deadline on Member States to come up with their national plans for Roma integration and inclusion, while on 6th April, the US Ambassador to Sofia, James Warlick, lectured on Roma integration and ethnic tolerance in the Bulgarian Black Sea capital of Varna. The University in the central city of Veliko Tarnovo and the Roma Center "Amalipe" are organising an information campaign including the massacre of Roma in Nazi concentration camps during World War II and a photography exhibit.
The most wide-spread theory is that Roma first came to Bulgaria around the 11th-12th century through the Byzantine Empire. The mass influx that led to today's Roma population, however, began with the Ottoman rule, when many Roma arrived in the footsteps of the Turkish army.
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