Eager to build a future for their families outside Rome’s segregated camps, a group called the Gipsy Queens began a cooking business.
Prejudice and racism against Romani is extremely prevalent across all of Europe, and Italy is not an exception to that. In theory, Italy’s national policy aims to integrate Romani in accordance with EU recommendations. In practice,none of that is even being considered. The government instead fund the construction of “Roma Camps” (recently $1.3 million have been allocated to build a new “camp”) that violate human rights (fail to meet minimum standards for adequate housing, etc.) and reinforce the segregation of Romani.
Asides from that, living in those “camps” comes with other prejudices, limitations and bears a bad stigma, which continuously hinders Romani to be able to find work [despite having diplomas] .. many Romani women dress themselves differently when they apply for jobs yet the prospective employers can still tell they are Romani and pretend they do not have any open positions available.
Because of this, a group of Romani women – calling themselves “G*psy Queens” (do not use the slur if you aren’t part of the Romani diaspora) – who are looking to better their lives have decided to do that through starting an own catering business; attempting to break down some of the barriers faced by Romani using the universal language of food.
Despite their dreams being suppressed both by external forces, such as racism, as well as cultural conditioning, the women continue to work hard to accomplish their goal.
I dearly wish them well with their business idea!!!!!
