Introduction

At the beginning, there was an essay, an assignment for 'Human Rights in Global Politics' (You can find the essay at: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/22412397/Roma-and-education-in-Romania-An-analysis-of-educational--problems-and-the-actions-taken-to-overcome-them ). Since the professor is a specialist in Roma issues and I come from a country with such a large Roma community (back then I did not know that it is Europe's largest), I have decided to write my paper on the Roma and education in Romania. Researching about it, I came to several points which kept my attention: 1) my previous ignorance on the topic; 2) the social distance between ethnicities in Romania, which I have partially experienced myself, but never dealt with it academically; 3) the large gap between girls and boys when it comes to education and the fact that there is little emphasis on females in education.

Therefore, I had the idea of doing something myself. It is one thing complaining about other people NOT doing something about it (like me in the essay), and actually doing something about it. I know I have not changed the world, nor did I improve the general situation of the Roma. However, I did something, I tried to do my tiny bit to solve a problem I have encountered.

So I have decided to raise funds and buy notebooks, pencils, pens, etc. for six Roma school girls in my home town. I have used the facebook group I have previously created for similar purposes and did several activities, like selling home-made soup and chocolate to neighbours and friends. Talking to several people about it, I have been amazed by their willingness to support my activity. For me, it changed from being a personal action, to something that is supported by others, a community who wants to see improvement. Thus finally, we managed to collect around £40, extending the action to ten girls.

Arriving home for Christmas, I was again pleasantly surprised to hear that a kind person offered us a material donation of notebooks, mechanical pencils, leads, rulers, post-its, etc. thus only spending £10 of the available funds.
We have decided that it is best to visit the families personally, in order to save postage fees, to directly engage with the family, to decrease social distance by furthering communication between ethnicities, etc.

So thus I went, together with my neighbour who is Hungarian, to visit the families and bring them the presents. You can read in other posts about our experiences.
And the pictures taken have been uploaded to: http://picasaweb.google.com/rava.sd2/LastRomaGirlsEducation#