Roma Connections: Maria’s School for Roma Ladies in Oldham, Greater Manchester

The 1st ever session of an 18-month long project with traditional Roma ladies in Oldham, Greater Manchester

KaskoSan Roma Charity and Oldham Coliseum have been attempting to engage Oldham Roma residents since 2016. After many failed attempts but also with many lessons learned, with Carly Henderson, former head of education at the Coliseum, we have co-designed the Roma Connections project which we’ve been running since September 2021.

Monica and Maria, the two Roma ladies making a difference in traditional Roma women’s life:

Initially Roma engagement was really hard work since Roma ladies didn’t understand the benefits of taking part in activities in the outsider world. They saw me going to college doing my classes and wondered why I would ever do that. After a whole year of regular session, they are asking me now if they can come with me too.

Roma ladies, mothers and grandmothers first ever experience of a classroom:

The initial bond happened for two reasons. Firstly, we have been working together with the Romanian Roma community in Oldham since 2016. Secondly, Roma ladies completely identified with me, the project leader from Kaskosan since through the regular encounters over the last six years they learnt that similarly to them I also got married at a young age, and I am also a young grandmother living within the Roma community following the Roma customary law.

Dr. Rosamaria Cisneros, Romani researcher, artist, historian, sociologist and Flamenco dancer and Maria Palmai, head of Roma Women Initiatives at KaskoSan:

Women deal with rather challenging situations however the weekly sessions helped them strengthen their confidence and self-image. Through the sessions they only had positive encounters with local British residents, therefore Roma ladies earned a higher status and appreciation within the wider Roma community for the connections they managed to build with professionals and artists in the outsider world. Through the project, Roma ladies had the first opportunity to learn new activities in spaces they have never engaged with before such as a library, a museum, a theatre, cultural heritage sites and a university.

The first Christmas action of Roma ladies in Oldham:

Parallel to the traditional Roma ladies’ group, at KaskoSan we also ran a traditional young Roma females’ group. The experience was interesting since the young group, who grew up experiencing education every day, was much less enthusiastic about the actual learning, however they showed a great interest in social causes.

Young Roma ladies in solidarity with Ukraine:

Young Roma ladies’ enjoying their first ever experience of a Gypsy caravan:

However, the Roma ladies being in their 30s and 40s have never spent a single day in formal education, they are illiterate, and most of them have children and grandchildren too.

Roma ladies have been very proud go to ‘Maria School’ as they called it:

Many East European Roma women share the same reality in the U.K. Arranged marriages, overcrowded housing, ethnic profiling and being regular victims of antigypsy hate crimes are the reality of most Roma families and the heaviest burden normally sits on these ladies. Sessions are giving them a space to freely express their ideas, share their problems and seek solutions to them in an external space with new skills, tools and connections.

Through the weekly sessions we are developing ways to engage traditional Roma women, the most isolated with the least or no opportunities to socialise and to build skills and connections in the outsider world. Roma ladies told us that they have seen projects engaging young educated Roma but there are only very of few of them in their communities, and they also their lost ties with their host community. We are hoping that this project is inspiring others to dare to design activities targeting Roma mothers and grandmothers too, often the most isolated individuals in Roma families.

Maria Palmai
Leader of Roma Women’s Initiatives with KaskoSan Roma Charity in the U.K.
maria@kaskosan.org