Romani college graduate in Czech Republic plans to become an educator himself

Jarmila Balážová has interviewed Romani community member Robert Olah, a 23-year-old student of economics and management who is hopeful that he will become a high school teacher of accounting and economics once he has acquired the relevant certification. The interview was broadcast online as part of ROMEA TV's "Ten Minute Plus" talk show.

Olah and his four siblings were raised by their mother in a socially excluded locality, but that has not kept him from fulfilling his childhood dream. He loves both accounting and economics and believes a teacher should know how to motivate pupils and students, saying he himself has had the good luck to experience such educators.   

Those experiences are probably why he has longed to become a great teacher since childhood. "My plan is to earn the kind of degree that will enable me to teach at high school economics, that has basically been my dream since I was little, and I am slowly making it come true," he said in the interview.   

In his free time, Olah is dedicated to working in nonprofit organizations and motivating Romani student youth. He says he wants to give back the kind of aid he received from others during his own moments of need.

A concise characterization of the would-be future educator is that he is ambitious and diligent. One component of his journey toward fulfilling his dream is his recently-defended Bachelor's thesis, which was assessed as one of the best at his faculty. 

The subject of that thesis is discrimination against Romani people on the housing market. Olah underook a unique experiment, sending out 1 600 housing applications in the name of non-existent prospective tenants to test the scope of ethnic discrimination on the Czech housing market. 

Olah also regularly attends the Romani student meetings held several times annually as part of the ROMEA organization's Romani Scholarship Program. The meetings are called "BARUVAS", which in Romanes means "We are growing", and bring together Romani students attending colleges and high schools across the Czech Republic and across different fields of study.