08/05/2010 And the Caravan Rolls on...Bela Bartok Street, Sajokaza, Satoraljaujhely
Jasmine: We’re still making several stops a day — and we’ve only got 4 more days to raise the rest of our kickstarter funding! Meanwhile, here are a few of the people we’ve met: Bela Bartok Street is a Romani neighbourhood of Alsozsolca where Helsinki Watch reported incidents of racist violence against Roma. We stopped and spoke to a group of Roma who said that they can never get any officials to pay attention to their complaints or crimes against them.Then we went to meet the mayor, a woman who agreed to help organize a screening of our film later in August -- where Roma and non-Roma will be invited to attend together. And we met with local representatives of the Roma self-government... They said that they were particularly inspired by Martin Luther King and civil rights films, and when Obama was elected they started to believe that maybe Roma can succeed as well! At the end of our meeting they were asking about Roma in the USA, so we phoned my friend George Eli in Connecticut and they had a short chat. Everyone seems to agree that education is key. Roma need school education, and the rest of us need to learn to be less prejudiced.
