You see them and would swear they are Romanians. They introduce themselves with pride and joy as young ethnic Romani and they fight that, through culture and education, other Romani youths shall break the barriers of discrimination.
Denisa and Lavinia are two young girls out of three in the house of Lupu. Alongside Georgiana, they were born into a mixed family with a Romani father and a Romanian mother. Their parent’s love story, both from Iasi, seems as if in a movie.
Mariana, the mother, married Iulian when she was young. She was saddened that she was not understood by her own family, but she rejoiced that the new family received her with open arms. Therefore, she attached body and soul to the Romani and their culture, and she has proudly raised her daughters in this spirit.
Denisa and Lavinia are taking their looks after her, though in their blood is pulsing the Romani spirit and the desire to make progress for the children and young people of their ethnicity. They always have their older sister Georgiana in mind, a very beautiful girl who resembles more her father’s people, and who has completed only the tenth grade. She did very well academically, but the insults and discrimination from people around her pushed her to quit school. Without her realizing, she has proved Romanians right in saying that young Romani girls quit school too early. Nevertheless, today Georgiana has understood that she has more fighting to do, and she is back in high school, taking 11th grade classes in the evening.
Meanwhile, Denisa has reached the third year studying Sociology, and Lavinia is in the first year of Communication and Public Relations. Both departments belong to the Faculty of Philosophy and Social and Political Sciences of Al. I Cuza University. The departments offered the girls the possibility to take special places for Roma students. The girls chose to use exercise their rights and occupy the places proudly, although they would have been able to gain a regular place at university.
They admit that it was always easier for them in school. Nevertheless, they have always witnessed the discrimination of their Romani colleagues, even the Romanians with darker skin, and they could not stay out of it. “In primary school and gymnasium we had many Romani colleagues. I would always get up and defend them when the teachers would bully them just because of ethnicity. I used to have better grades and I was perceived as being Romanian, but I was trying tell the teachers that I too am Romani and there is nothing bad about it”, recounts Lavinia. She is pugnacious and has always undertook to defend at any cost the ones who seemed frail, poor or with low self-esteem. She complements well with Denisa, who is gentler and more calculated, and who loves to let the Romanians spit all the venom before telling them the shocking confession. “When people start talking about Romani, I like to inflame the people to find out their opinion so that in the end I could say: «I am Romani too!». In that moment their perception changes. It is nice to see this. There are Romanians who do not believe me, who want me to contradict nature, just because I cannot be judged according to my physical appearance” said Denisa.
Therefore, it is a problem at the collective level, and many people are being discriminated only because of the way they look. The Lupu sisters simply cannot accept this, because it cannot be accepted. In this respect, they have followed in their parents’ footsteps who are activists for the Romani people, and are members of the Association Pro Europe Romani Party. Together with other colleagues, the two sisters have been going there since adolescence, taking part in the youth program. They take on many responsibilities who they fulfill successfully.
In the autumn they have participated in the organisation of a gala where more than 30 Romani students were awarded. They had the joy to see young people with very good academic, artistic and sport results, gathered together. Every time they had an opportunity to go to a poor community they have done so, working with humanitarian campaigns for supporting the children and their education. Likewise, they have organised meetings, projects and activities to promote the values of the ethnic group they belong to and to reduce stereotypes. The Lupu sisters and their colleagues are an example to others through their work at the society, and through their daily lives. They are always present at school or university, and they cannot imagine their future without education. “We try to show through this association that young Romani can learn too. We want to come forward, through different social, cultural and educational projects, to integrate in society. We would like to eliminate the stereotypes among the Romanians, but also show Romani that they can go far through involvement and education”, says Lavinia. Denisa adds: “The time has come when people need to wake up, to realise that times have changed; the Romanian society has evolved, and the Romani society has also evolved. It is time to know our Romani neighbour and to change our attitude, because we have young Romani who bring true value to art, to the workplace and to life in general.”
The girls are Ursari Romani, but the grandparents and the great-grandparents were blacksmiths. Every time they pass through the city centre in front of The Three Hiearchs Monastery, they admire the iron fence on which their great-grandfather worked. They understand that everything and nothing has changed over the years. Then they quote Connect-R, a Romani artist, who said that it was very difficult for him to get where he is now, because he started two steps behind. Not because his legs were shorter, but because they were darker. Denisa and Lavinia are left for a few moments in a profound state of meditation, just like wise grandmothers. They shake their worries and thoughts, smile and continue with their youthful plans.
They work hard, each separately, together as sisters, but also as an association, as a group of youths which fight for change. They know that the skin colour does not make a person good or less good, and they do not want to keep any of all this only for their own benefit. Thinking of the future, they share all information, all willpower and all the work. Their children will have Roma spirit, but, maybe, they will end up living in a more open society. where the start line will be the same for everybody, where the start line will not be two steps behind for those with darker legs.
This article can be read here http://saptepietre.ro/2015/04/startul-corect-nu-tine-de-culoarea-pielii.html
