ROMEA association does much more than run news server Romea.cz

Dear Friends and Supporters of the ROMEA association,

Below you will find a link to the first issue of our association’s quarterly newsletter in which we update you about our recent activities. Why have we decided to publish such a bulletin?

On the one hand, this is an effort to refute untrue rumors that have been circulating about our organization. These rumors genuinely bother us because they deflect attention away from the diverse range of activities we are actually involved in every day. ROMEA is often known only as the organization managing news server Romea.cz. We are evidently a thorn in the side of those now spreading lies to the effect that our association regularly takes in “CZK 17 million a year from ‘white’ taxpayers.” Others claim we have been receiving that same amount of money to run the news server since 2003. Both of these rumors are untrue and harm not only our name, but the work of all our employees. To see our newsletter (in Czech only), please visit http://www.romea.cz/dokumenty/zpravodaj-ROMEA-01-2011.pdf

Anyone can take a look at the official website of our association (http://www.sdruzeniromea.cz) to see which of our projects have been financed from public sources (the Czech Government and the EU) and with how much money. Our newsletter is intended as yet another source of information about our work. The ROMEA association and news server Romea.cz are not one and the same. Moreover, news server Romea.cz is financed solely by its very modest advertising income.

A much more essential reason for creating the newsletter, of course, has to do with the development of our organization. We began as amateurs in 2002. Today we are constantly doing our best to work as a professional nonprofit organization with more than 10 employees. When we started, we were a team of four who had nothing: No computers, no photocopiers, no office. All we had was the desire to start doing something. At first, our aim was solely to change the media image of Romani people in the Czech Republic, which was why we established the magazine Romano voďi (Romani Soul) and news server Romea.cz. However, we gradually determined that we wanted to do even more outside the media field, which is why today we help people find work and offer a helping hand to victims of discrimination or racist assault. We support education (and not only the education of Romani people) and do our best to influence the younger generation to become open, responsible human beings when they grow up. We care about the development of Romani language and literature. We care just as much about what sort of society there will be in this country, and we believe there is a lot that needs to change here.

Not everything succeeds immediately, but we are learning a lot. In our first newsletter, we would like to tell you about everything we have achieved during the past nine years. We wish you pleasant reading!