A learning resource pack for secondary schools in Wales
Today, the Romani Cultural & Arts Company launches a new resource for secondary schools in Wales, about the Romani Holocaust or Porrajmos. The learning resource is the result of over a year’s work by a dedicated team of academics, artists, designers, and project managers, all of whom are from the Romani and Traveller communities. The Romani Holocaust, or Porrajmos as it is described in the Romani language (after it was coined as a term in the late 1990’s, by Dr Ian Hancock, Professor of Romani Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin) was an episode in the genocidal relationship of non-Romani, and Romani people – the Sinti, Roma, Woonwagenbewoners, Manush, Gens de Voyage, Yenische, Ashkalé, Egyptian, Ijito, Getano, Quinqui, Mercheros, and other Romani groups in Nazi Germany and fascist occupied Europe, 1936 to 1945.
The learning resource is intended as a guide for educators, teaching assistants, and older pupils in schools in Wales, though it is also hoped that Gypsy, Roma, Traveller voluntary and Third Sector organisations will find it useful in work with young Romani and Traveller people in community environments, especially those that work with youngsters not in education, employment, or training (NEET). The resource is broad in its coverage of the themes surrounding the topic, including a shorter history of Gypsy, Roma, Traveller communities, the development of racialised ‘thinking’ about Gypsies, and the terrible illogic of eugenics that led to the Holocaust of Sinti, Roma, Manush, Gitano, and other Romani communities under Nazi control or that of their allies in Europe (such as fascist Spain). A special section about the least well-known and understood experiences in the countries of south east Europe, such as Bulgaria, Rumania, and Yugoslavia, is also included in the resource, as a topic that has been largely ignored, even if the knowledge about the Romani Holocaust itself has become better known over the last thirty years than was once the case.
The ultimate aim of the resource is to raise awareness of the topic, to support those educators in bringing the topic into the mainstream learning environment, and to provide them with some tools, including lesson plans, to deliver the data from the best knowledge available. Romani Cultural & Arts Company hopes to be able to further support educators with training for them in the future, on how to best use the resource, if funding becomes available. In the meantime, every school in Wales has a digital copy of the learning resource and additional copies can be downloaded from the Romani Cultural & Arts Company website, https://romaniarts.co.uk
Please also see attachments below:
