Pull The Brake!

Discrimation against Roma is an alarming problem in Europe. While a lot of minority groups suffer from structural disadvantages, discrimination and violence against Roma are especially virulent.

Half of the Roma in both Western and Eastern European countries have experienced discrimination in the last year alone. The Roma communities are heavily stigmatized by stereotypes, mostly not leaving a voice or space to Roma activits. In most countries, there is no public dialogue concerning their case and stereotypes of "Gypsies" are taken as a depiction of reality. This follows a sad tradition: discrimination against Roma in Europe goes back to the 15th century, reaching their climax with the Porrajmos.

Discrimination is only the first step on a path that leads to social exclusion and, further down, violence. That‘s why we have to stop it.

We want to create a campaign that raises awareness about this issue and calls for action against discrimination.

In order to connect the opportunities of an online campaign with guerilla activism, we want to both create a website and a sticker campaign for the outdoors. Thus, we can intervene in places where discrimination is virulent - the city and especially public transport where people are forced to be close to each other - and invite our audience to take up the action by pulling a virtual brake on discrimination. As a symbol for the urgency and seriousness of the matter we have chosen an emergency brake, the one that one can find in public transportation and which every individual can pull to stop even the fastest train.

For this campaign, Humanity in Action alumni from all over Europe come together to implement the campaign in their environment in cooperation with local partners. A clear and universal message - each translated into the respective local language - can connect international activists against Roma discrimination.

The idea for this campaign originated in Ideas Incubator at the Humanity in Action Fellowship Program 2014 in Warsaw, financened by the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future", the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Poland and the Program "Citizens for Democracy".

This project is supported by the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" and Humanity in Action. It is co-impleneted by the Organization Balkans, let's get up! This publication does not represent an expression of opinion by the Foundation EVZ or by Humanity in Action. The author(s) bear(s) responsibility for the content.

The campaign on Facebook

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