ROMEA releases new Czech-Norwegian documentary film about aid for victims of discrimination and hate violence

 A new Czech-Norwegian documentary film about the situation in those countries for victims of discrimination and hate violence has been produced by staffers of the ROMEA organization in the Czech Republic. It is now available for viewing on the YouTube channel of ROMEA TV.

The film maps the options for aiding people who encounter societal rejection because they are members of this minority community in the Czech Republic and Norway. Representatives of the Romtiltaket department, which operates at Oslo City Hall and provides support to local Roma in discrimination cases, were the project partner.

The documentary was filmed in the Czech Republic and Norway, was produced by František Bikár of ROMEA in collaboration with Richard Samko of Czech Television, and was first publicly screened on 28 April at the House of National Minorities in Prague with representatives of Romtiltaket in attendance. The segment of the film on the situation in Norway includes interviews with representatives of Romtiltaket, with a Romani woman who describes her experience with discrimination, with an adviser from the office of the Norwegian ombudsperson for anti-discrimination and equality, and with two representatives of a local nonprofit organization, Kirkens Bymisjon.

The Czech segment of the film includes an interview with the director of the In IUSTITIA organization, Klára Kalibová, who talks about the specifics of working with victims of hate violence and opportunities to aid them; with a lawyer from the Equal Treatment Department at the Office of the Public Defender of Rights (the ombudsperson); with clients who have contacted the toll-free anti-discrimination hotline run by the ROMEA organization because their homes have been attacked multiple times; and with staffers of ROMEA’s hotline for the victims of discrimination and hate violence. ROMEA ran its toll-free number from approximately 2006 until 2015 in order to aid victims of discrimination and racist crimes against members of the Romani community, the group most at risk of being targeted by this negative societal phenomenon in the Czech Republic.

The project included the practical exchange of information and skills between ROMEA and staffers from the Romtiltaket, which took the form of five-day internships where the representatives of ROMEA and Romtiltaket visited each other’s workplaces and also engaged in a theoretical discussion comparing the Czech and Norwegian approaches and methods used when aiding clients. The film was created with support from the Fund for NGOs of the Civil Society Development Foundation (NROS) as part of a project called “Sharing know-how on support for victims of discrimination between the Czech Republic and Norway”.