 Good afternoon all, my name is Dr. Anirudha Babar from the department of political science and also a coordinator of dot-docs lecture series. And here we are really happy to present third speaker in Dr. Ambedkar's lecture series. The title of the lecture series is the relevant science significance of Dr. V. R. Ambedkar today and tomorrow. So to continue with the lecture series, we are blessed to have Dr. Ekaterina Dunajeva, assistant professor of political science from Pazmani Peter Catholic University. And she will be speaking on the case of Dr. Ambedkar Buddhist school in Syacosa, Hungary, a quest for Roma empowerment. So before we begin, let me just introduce you with our speaker. Dr. Ekaterina Dunajeva is an assistant professor of political science at Pazmani Peter Catholic University, a researcher at Central European University Center for Teaching and Learning and a senior researcher at Public Policy and Management Institute, a willingness-based research and policy analysis center. In addition, Dr. Dunajeva is one of the editors of the critical Romani Studies journal hosted by CEU's Romani Studies Program. She defended her PhD in political science at the University of Oregon, USA in 2014. Throughout her career, Dr. Dunajeva acted as a consultant, advisor, researcher and political analyst for international and local NGOs, think tanks and other institutions. Dr. Dunajeva acted as an advisory board member for Open Society Foundations Youth Initiative from 2012 to 2014 and a consultant for OSF's Education Support Board 2016. All of her work, both academic and applied, has revolved around the nexus of youth policy, education and social equality. Dr. Dunajeva's research has been published in several book chapters, peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, and her manuscript is soon to be published by CEU Press. Her areas of expertise are Roma Identity, Education Policy, Integration, Youth Empowerment, as well as Contemporary, Russian and Hungarian Politics. Dr. Katya would be speaking on a very interesting topic today and I think in my quest to understand Dr. Biara Mik, I also reached to Hungary and I really was surprised and happy when I came to know the kind of love and appreciation and also the respect that the Roma people has for Dr. Biara Mikar and somewhere I realized and drawn the parallels between the situation of the Roma community that with situation of Dalits in India, the Tribals in India and somewhere there is a common bonding I discovered that brings all of us together. Dr. Dunajeva on a single platform and that bonding is a bonding of suffering, bonding of pain and that is and this is how you know we look at Dr. Biara Ambedkar's life and his work. So Dr. Ambedkar not only influenced all of us in India but he has influenced the Roma struggle for the empowerment and social justice. Dr. Ambedkar also inspired the Black African movement, the Red American movement also. So the universalization of Dr. Biara Ambedkar is really visible when you actually visit Hungary and meet the people and the representatives of the Roma community. So I'm really happy to have Dr. Katya you know with us and madam I really I'm really thankful to you for your time and we are really eager to learn from you not only about the case of Dr. Ambedkar Buddhist studies but really want to know the overall how the how Dr. Biara Ambedkar's life and his work actually influence the commonest of the common member from the Roma community. Madam over to you. Thank you so much for coming. We are eager to listen to you. Thank you so much for the kind introduction. Thank you for the invitation. It is really an honor to be here and I would like to share my screen in a minute and my presentation will really be structured into two parts. I would like to talk about Roma in general just assuming that the topic or the group might not be something that is a common knowledge amongst some of you. So I'd like to introduce the group itself and then through a case study of a school I would like to highlight how the teachings of Dr. Ambedkar were influential in really joining in of course with this struggle for rights but also giving hope to so many students who would have been otherwise lost in the state educational system. So it's a very unique school and I will highlight also the spirituality that is part of the teaching and or part of the curriculum in the school that gives a very personalized approach to the most marginalized group in Hungary and with that actually the success rate and success stories are quite evident from the school. Okay so I will share my screen hopefully successfully and please let me know if you see my PowerPoint right now. Yes yes it's coming. Okay so the school is called Dr. Ambedkar. It's a Buddhist school. It's a high school and the town is called Shayokaza. Since then I'll talk about when it was in Shayokaza quite recently moved to another town of Mishkoids but really the school did not change much and a little bit about Roma just so we have a common understanding what is the group that this school specifically is catering to. So Roma who are also known as Gypsies they came to Hungary in the 13th and 14th centuries really a long time ago and their traditional occupations were horse trading, metalworking, basket waving craftsmen, they were blacksmiths. This is important to mention because that also made them not only an integral part of the society but a very much honored and respected masters of society and that is important to say because on the one hand it shows how the history of Roma have been intertwined with the histories of the countries where they live in and that goes of course against the narrative that Roma somehow have developed historically and their identity developed on the margins of society. It was very much part of the societies in which they lived in and again they were honored masters in those societies. Romani people from early documents were sometimes mentioned as Egyptians from which the name Gypsies came from but that was a mistake as they later on found out or also the Pharaoh's people referring to similarly this misconception that they came from Egypt but later it was discovered that they actually came from India. So it was linguistic evidence that pointed at the roots of Roma to India specifically the Romani language that shares roots with some Indian languages so then scholars traced it back that Roma actually left North India sometimes between the 6th century and the 11th century and started migrating towards Europe where they settled in various parts of Europe various countries in Europe. So back to their history a little bit just to show you know what is the context of Roma today so as I said they were very much honored members of the society they took an important position as masters with skills that were so valuable and a testament to that actually are those royal grants that were given to them in the 15th and 16th centuries. They were under the protection of the crown they had freedom to travel they had no military obligations which was quite a privilege they did not have to adhere to the to Christianity so their status was very distinct and I would say privileged from the rest of the population they were also able to form autonomous ethnic groups and again this was the time when consolidation of the state was already underway so being autonomous at that time was another set of privileges that they enjoyed and sometimes they could form their own authorities under the leadership of what was known of Voivodes or Voida in Hungarian. I find this very important because when we talk about educating a counter narrative or educating history of the Roma people which is extremely important in not only for Roma but also the non-Roma population this tends to be omitted but it goes against again the the dominant narrative now of how Roma have been marginalized for centuries they in fact were not so later on this is when some of the these tendencies are changing the reasons are really multifold but from the mid 18th century there is what's called enlightened policies I will talk about them in just a minute and also with the later appearing industrialization process many of these skills that Roma possessed are becoming obsolete so let's get back to the mid 18th century this at this time the policies of Maria Theresa and also her son Emperor Joseph II already treated Roma very differently from previous years so at this time there's a very clear civilizing mission that appears in Western Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire at that time also the state is is centralized the nation's being consolidated and with that there is a clear mission of creating citizens out of what they were seen as misfits of the society so as I said these enlightenment policies that were employed by both Maria Theresa and her son Joseph were treating Roma as people or group who are capable of improving and learning but who ultimately must be changed and this change was seen as necessary for them to become civilized members of the society and the reason for their uncivilized nature was their culture this is how it was seen at this time so these enlightenment policies were introduced with tools such as reeducation forbidding of the use of Romani language this is a very important phase of Roma history because this is when many were assimilated so assimilationist policies were in many ways successful because a large proportion of the Roma population lost their language and with their language a very important part of their identity was lost not all of them but again this this this was a very important campaign in that another tool or mechanism of this civilizing mission was taking away children for reeducation purposes usually Romani children were then placed in Hungarian Christian families peasant families and they were to be also called new Hungarians um Roma were denied the right to own horses so that again a lifestyle a traditional lifestyle that they had was forbidden denied the right to own back wagons so that they the sedentarization process could start and also this was a fight against nomadic lifestyle Roma were issued land and seeds to become liable to pay tribute from their crops in order to make them also peasants and similarly to their their non-Roma in the country they were supposed to build houses and had to ask for permission if they wanted to leave their villages that again the the quest for sedentarization and sedentarized lifestyle and in addition to that there there was also a decree to disallow the very term of gypsy or Tzigani as they were known at the time and it was replaced with new terms new citizen new farmer or new peasant new Hungarian new settler these were used to describe or to name to call this group so the whole eradication of culture was not enough it was also eradication of the the whole title or the whole label that was used to identify the group and then along with that there were also prohibitions in terms of marriages between Roma so mixed marriages were encouraged and that was another way of course of assimilation so as I said assimilation campaigns were were successful in many ways because they did achieve that many Roma for example did not pass on the language to their societies and I'm going to skip many phases here of history because we only have an hour and a lot to talk about I just wanted to highlight these two eras for sure in terms of you know Roma playing such a significant role with their skills and then Roma all of a sudden becoming victims of really the philosophy political philosophy societal philosophy of the time and and all of a sudden being targets of civilizing missions and then later on they were according to many accounts uh integral uh remained integral parts of the Hungarian society and a testament to that was actually world war one the picture you see on the top is um from actually world war one in many accounts many historical um research shows that they served for example in the military with the same heroism with the same patriotism as any other Hungarian um so there was really no antagonism to the extent that that this popular narrative today makes it seem like the biggest turning point of course was world war two that this history of world war two in uh Romani history is known as uh Paraimos which also means destruction and of course we all know world war two in the context of the Holocaust and and now there's significantly more effort being paid into conducting more research into the Roma Holocaust which is what Paraimos means so how Roma were affected deported and annihilated during world war two which was a similar campaign to what the Jewish Holocaust was but targeted against the Roma so there were for example gypsy cards identification cards as they were known this is the picture that you see on the bottom and that was a way to identify where they are that was before the the mass deportations were happening um and then later on in Hungary just like in most other Eastern European countries when anti-Roma atrocities begun then most Roma were either transported to concentration camps or forced labor camps where a significant part of them died in Hungary the Erocross party assumed power in 1944 and that was a far right Hungarian Nazi party and under their rule Roma suffered the most this is one of the most intense deportations that happened in the country and atrocities within the country so this is a significant event and this is something that is a returning element of Roma history and another reason why I'm telling you this is because the school we're about to talk in in a moment highlights the importance of Roma history and Roma identity in their teachings as well so who are the Roma today is an important question this is another discussion I thought to have before we talk about the school so we see how the teachings of the school are a little bit different from from what for example the Romani identity narrative is for let's say even the NGO sector or the the this common in state educational institutions so I brought a few photos here to show you this is from an exhibition some years ago and and this is a very good juxtaposition of what Roma are seen by much of the society and who they are in reality all the people you see here on on the pictures are quite known Romani either scholars politicians or activists so they're all respectable members of their societies and several of them have phd's others are important political activists and leaders of big NGOs and then you see them in in their professional outfits and on the left you see them how the stereotypical representation of this group would portray them so this exhibition was was a very important signal a very important message to the society that these stereotypes negative stereotypes that many have about Roma as fortune tellers as you see here as beggars as musicians is really reductionist and these kind of stereotypes do not allow the Roma minority to really break out of these stereotypes and show their true faces and the true faces of course is what would you see to the right here so this exhibition had a lot more photos than the ones I'm presenting here to you but this is just a taste of how different the reality can be from the perceptions so the contemporary situation of Roma is rather difficult in Hungary and this is basically to introduce you to the background of the students who are and who attend the school Dr. Ambedkar school so Roma are the known to be the biggest losers of transition in the late 1980s and early 1990s so ever since then there's really has been quite small if any improvements in their life two indicators of that that I'm showing you here on the slide is the labor market participation you see statistics on Roma compared to non-Roma in Hungarian labor market so you see that unemployment rate is significantly bigger for Roma long term unemployment rate is of course the the more serious indicator after which it becomes increasingly more difficult to re-enter the labor market inactivity rate is is extremely high and you see employment rate is half or less of Roma than non-Roma this also shows to you that there are structural problems that Roma have to face and they begin as early as early childhood education continue throughout school and then go on when they want to enter the labor market with these statistics of course this is a very complex question but the statistics speaks for itself in terms of inequalities and what they mean for Roma and in terms of education this will be more relevant for our discussion here education levels you see for birth cohorts so the statistics shows how it changes from one generation to the next and how it compares to the non-Roma population in Hungary so here you see even though there is an an improvement between the cohorts so from the 70s to 90s there is an increase in the attendance there's still a difference between Roma attendance and non-Roma attendance and there's still significantly less Roma who even complete their elementary education or primary education and if you see the numbers for already enrolling in higher education institutions enrolling in college it's the biggest gap right I mean only four percent of Roma enter colleges as opposed to 31 percent of their non-Roma peers so this is something that the school is working towards as well is to change these numbers to allow more and more Roma to join universities and and become role models become really equal members of the society like their non-Roma peers and in addition to that of course is the intolerance xenophobia that exists broadly speaking in Eastern Europe but very specifically in Hungary as well many studies were conducted one of the more recent study was done about Hungarian attitudes towards minority groups so they did both a study on Hungary and compared to the EU media and the average in the European Union and they did studies about anti-Muslim anti-Roma and anti-Jewish sentiments in the country and as you see Hungary excels in all if I may say that so Hungary is quite anti everything all the major groups that are listed here Muslims Roma and Jews the the Hungarian intolerance level of intolerance is is quite higher sometimes even double than that in the European Union I brought you one quote here just to illustrate what it looks like in politics so co-founder of Fidesz party that's the ruling party today in Hungary Jóad Boyer made the following statement in January of 2013 a significant part of the Roma are unfit for coexistence they're not fit to live among people these Roma are animals and they behave like animals when they meet with resistance they commit murder they're incapable of human communication so this is quite outspoken which I would say more often it would be an implicit language of intolerance this is quite explicit as you see and but importantly many of the policies that are now formulated in the name of integration in fact further marginalize and push the Roma back into the margins or even beyond the margins of society and in the labor market we're actually working on the study right now in the labor market it's a similar situation in education so even the policies that were aimed at integrating Roma or enabling them to receive an education in fact or in reality on the ground simply meant that many of the Roma children without really any reasons were put in special education schools so their level of education is not going to improve under the conditions and the circumstances that exist today they are simply kept at the same position and and these integration policies in my opinion are integration policies just to name but in fact they do not go beyond the structural racism that exists in society today so just a few words about the distribution of population some of the characteristics of Roma population so much is disputed and as you know these even census that is conducted once every decade it's all a self choice so if everybody chooses their own identification and given that many scholars actually argued that Roma would not willingly choose or self-label as Roma so they even if they're Roma they might choose the non-Roma label and so the 2001 census showed the 205,000 people Roma people in Hungary which according to many observers was was a clear understatement about the number of Roma after that an interesting campaign began which was called We Belong Here and that was was a campaign that was aimed at strengthening Roma identity and instilling pride in Roma in order for them to be more willing to take that box at the census and actually own up to being a Roma be proud of being Roma and that was relatively successful because you see the difference between the 2001 and 2011 campaign and obviously it's not impossible for Roma to increase from 205,000 to 315,000 so everybody sees that as a result of a little bit of pride that this campaign gave to Roma to actually reveal or be more open about their ethnic identity so what that says to us again is that there is a very pervasive not only fear but shame of being a Roma which is again something that the school will have to go against when they teach for example Romani history that it's not something that should be a source of shame it's something that should be a source of pride. Researchers put actually the number at 9 to 10 percent according to their estimations it's very difficult to know there's lots of research into politics of numbers who is interested is to lower the numbers or actually inflate the numbers there's much politics going into that but realistically what we can rely on is the census but the census does not necessarily show the real numbers on the ground given these exclusionary and racist dynamics in the country. What is known however is that it's a very young population in terms of its age composition so about a third are under 18 which is a significant finding because this also says to us that many of them are young people comparatively speaking in Hungary the population is declining the non-Roma population while the Roma population is growing in terms of their numbers so this is something that must be considered this is also something that will illustrate the importance of education even higher importance of education because the fertility rates among Roma tend to be higher than among non-Roma. Okay and if just a few more language ethnic labels just so and after this we will start with the school so as I said assimilation of these campaigns back under Maria Theresa were quite successful so many do not speak their mother tongue anymore the majority just speaks Hungarian but there are still some who do speak their language the Lovara or so known sometimes as block Roma have still retained their dialect their bilingual usually they speak their dialect as well as Hungarian and then there's Boyash minority they tend to reject actually the label of Roma they prefer to be called Boyash or Boyash Gypsy Bash in Hungarian they live in the southern part of Hungary and their language actually resembles an archaic Romanian language because their their migration route actually was from or through Romania and then there is a so-called standardized Romaness which I wanted to add here because with the institutionalization of Roma rights there are now several NGOs that are fighting for preservation of Roma history construction of Roma history addition of historical knowledge from the Romani perspective and there is a campaign to basically reteach the Romani language to Roma the language that was either lost or through these efforts of assimilation deprived from Roma families and many call it a standardized Romaness because this language was was mainly spoken in dialects that might have had some differences but the standardized Romaness language is aimed at really a broader Roma population throughout Europe there are many debates about the label itself to call them Roma to call them Gypsy and everybody has a point and the the politically correct terminology is Roma and even though I mentioned the Boyash for example so Roma in Romani language means person you know a Roma person but Boyash use a different language so for them that's that's an exclusionary language by itself but we're not going to go there because that's probably not as important for a discussion today but importantly there are many efforts at integration and I'm sure you know this because if anything comes through about Roma in international media it's usually in the context of integration how Roma are being integrated through EU policies through EU tools and methods and money and all kinds of schemes too national measures of integration through education through labour market but education really stands out and integration through education is something that is usually regarded as really the first step and potentially one of the most important and lasting ways of integrating any group really but in specific Roma population now in introducing the school I also want to say that it's very paradoxical to think about integration through education and if we take the example of Hungary there are many policies as I said that are trying to integrate Roma minority through education on the level of the European Union very similar so I brought in a quote from you from the Council of Europe's Roma Youth Action Plan it says education plays a central role in combating and overcoming anti-gypsyism because the result of centuries of prejudice cannot be fought by laws and courts alone right so there's a very clear favour of education as a tool or really a field of education of of of integration so we might say that education acquired the critical role and responsibility in integrating and in addition to integrating also to empower but and this is why I believe this is quite a paradox educational institutions are segregated and discrimination is still widespread and so from the introduction of my work you you heard that I've done much much research about schools so much of my research was actually going around in schools these were just very general state schools in Hungary and through participant observation just sitting in classes and observing how our Roma treated or they're treated differently what are the disciplinary measures that are applied to Roma that are not applied to Roma is there any change in curriculum that is specific to Roma students and it was quite obvious that schools are not some kind of microcosm apart from the society but they're very much representing the societal values and it happens to be that in Hungary societal values are anti-Roma or discriminatory so most teachers would just echo the same sentiments that we see largely present in the society in the media in politics in in the labour market it is in my opinion quite naive to expect that the schools are somehow going to represent something completely different from from the societal values so given that I made the argument in in my studies earlier studies that the the mainstream education is just following the same pattern of marginalization in the school how it manifests was was in in many ways the disciplinary measures against Roma so for example teachers would tell Roma that bad behavior is something that they need to keep for their home implying that you know what is happening in Roma households is by definition bad or something that is worse than what they are allowed to do in the schools they would be almost immediately placed in in the weaker groups so even if the class itself is an integrated class with both Roma and non-Roma students they would be separate groups you know a math class for stronger students and a math class for weaker students and the weaker students all tend to be Roma so of course the suspicion arises right away whether that was an ethnically motivated separation into groups or did anyone do any kind of actual assessment of their abilities so and we can go on and on you know it's not only disciplinary measures it's not only within class segregation it's a lot more the dynamics that is going on and the attitudes and the assistance or lack of assistance that they receive so it is it is quite a controversial issue it's quite a paradox the map actually I wanted to show you here on the right shows the concentration of Roma students in Hungary so this map is divided into Hungarian counties and the more Roma there are in schools in the given county the darker that county is and the red ones are where the concentration is the biggest so you see a segregationist picture here now it's not showing specific schools but it shows you that regionally this is quite visible you have some places some counties where there are very few Roma and you have somewhere there's lots of Roma to the extent that a third of all students are Roma and a third Hungary I mean Roma are not a third of the whole population so there is I mean somebody might call it's not segregation it's a concentration whatever we prefer to call it there is a concentrated number of Roma and within schools this tends to be the same thing there are some schools with Roma there are some schools with no Roma whatsoever there are some integrated schools but again you know I would argue that even there the majority of them will have some kind of in in class or inside segregation so given this picture now let's look at at the school the buddha school in in we used to be in Shiocaza now it's in Mishkoz so the question so this this was a study that that we conducted in through field work in 2015 with Patrick Chesky we co-published an article based on that and then I I've been following really the school and how what changed how it changed and as I said they moved from Shiocaza to Mishkoz Mishkoz is very close to Shiocaza it's a bigger city and that gave an opportunity for students from nearby area to all come to Mishkoz and I'll talk about it they also opened a dormitory which made it a lot more accessible really for a lot of students so we wanted to to ask a question and see what kind of education is most appropriate for marginalized Roma youth and most of them live in impoverished segregated and ghetto-like communities and we were looking for for not necessarily alternative education but really a model an educational model that would work for who Roma are and that would work as an inclusive space a community development developing ground for Roma because all of this were needed so we found Dr Ambedkar's Buddhist school in Shiocaza and we went there for for field work the pictures you saw are my picture that that I took when we were there but again the building itself is is no longer the schools they moved to Mishkoz but it is similar so let's let's see how education is is different here and what is the mission of the school so the educated educational structure we found to be quite progressive and innovative and a lot more catering to a specific group of population that might need a little bit more than the black and white curriculum and you know the the same kind of prussian education style that is dominant in Hungary so we called it a counter hagemonic and pedagogical vanguard for Roma youth and maybe I don't know if if if it sounds something strange but in fact a counter hagemonic was was quite visible because they went against this narrative that I've been implying throughout my my presentation here that there's this perception of Roma as being oppressed as being marginal as being workshop and as being underachieve and achievers in schools so counter hagemonic discourse that that were narrative or even teachings that they represent in fact are turning that around and saying the opposite they're not workshop they can do a lot of things it's it's there's lots to be proud of when it comes to Roma identity so incorporating that into their pedagogy is a very important empowering mechanism and now they also recognize and realize that without giving this this kind of attitude to their students their Roma students education will not be as effective so this was very much a must in in in how they approach education so the schools attempt to claim a space and reclaim teachings on and for Roma identity was very important so they're not they're teaching for Roma identity to strengthen it but they also teach about Roma identity to give that pride back to the students so they blend the cultural elements with Dr. Ambedkar's humanist ideology and Buddhist teachings and that is a very unique combination of things really so again you know on the bottom you see these elements being blended within the school you see for example on the left the wheel some Buddhist elements you see Dr. Ambedkar's bust here so lots of even about the decoration of the school gives that that ambience so how how are the the cultural elements for example included so it can be of the Roma flag I actually showed you a picture if you remember where the flag was there the wheel in the middle of the flag you see that is also present there Roma anthem Roma history some of the holidays that are now celebrated at least in Europe but potentially globally like August 2nd which is known as International Romani Holocaust Day May 16th is Romani Resistance Day and and others and I'm going to skip this in the interest of time and let me get to the spirituality which which I think might be more of an interest for for the guests here so the founders of the school are Derdak Tibor and Ososianos we interviewed both of them I wanted to actually quote an interview from from Janos she said after I traveled to India for five weeks it was a real life changing experience there I saw that the Dalits based on Dr. Ambedkar's teachings take full ownership of their fates and place education in the center the strong spiritual standing allowed for astonishing changes in the life of Dalits an empowerment of the group the belief that it is not one skin color or ethnicity that determines their abilities but the hard work and effort so in other words this very nicely seeps into this counter hegemonic educational mechanisms or or tools that they're using not highlighting so we found actually that it's a very interesting dynamic here too while they're teaching about Roma identity implied that important they also stress the fact that it is not that Roma or non-Roma identity it's not the skin color it's not an ethnic label or any of that that will determine somebody's fate because they found that oftentimes students would come and they're already broken down by the societal prejudices you know they they don't expect much from themselves basically but the lack of expectations towards themselves actually is coming as a result of societal messages that they're getting so so this kind of belief or this attitude immediately positions them in a new field in which they can begin hoping they can begin aspiring towards something and this is why they thought that education on and by itself is not as meaningful because if one expects a future of joining public work scheme like sweet sleepers or cutting bushes along the road those those are very common actually in the popular belief jobs that Roma take then why would you value education now if you have aspirations to become a doctor or a lawyer then you will view education differently so this is why the spiritual ethos is was so important and and and so revolutionary really for the context of Roma students uh so this philosophy became an essential tenet for Dr Ambedkar's Buddhist school the goal of the school was to provide useful knowledge useful to become conscious citizen to be proud of Roma identity and learn to navigate in the discriminatory system rather than blindly teach standardized curriculum so that's another part of of this flexibility that they allow to themselves and whereas many schools will teach for I would say teaching sake just because it's part of the curriculum and it needs to be done they realize that teaching has to be done in the interest of the individual to make them a proud person whoever they are to make them a conscious citizen to make them a successful person really so if it if it means navigation through this discriminatory system that that that is what they need to prepare students for and Buddha's man dr. Ambedkar's teaching are the block backbone of the school spirituality it is with this spirituality that the use is inspired to dream to think about their place in this world and their ability to shape their own future and I want to stress how important it is and actually my next slide I also talk about it in my research to outside of the school this was very common before Roma children went to school I would ask around what they wanted to be and just like any other child really girls wanted to ballerinas boys wanted to be firefighters they wanted to be policemen some wanted to be engineers and then the same question you ask of fifth graders and it's usually you know shrugging their shoulders they don't know maybe nothing so a huge impact what the school years do and if there's not this hope that the school system can somehow instill in the children that they can do that they're able to do then the result will be that these and prejudice prejudice and discriminatory messages get to them and really destroy all that hope and then they become the stereotypes that the society sees so this school really is doing it differently and so spirituality is more central here than than ethnic based group identity which distinguishes the philosophy of dr. Ambedkar Buddhist school from several Roma youth programs. Those tend to emphasize pride and Roma culture, trans-born and ethnic unity and a certain form of Roma nationalism and this I mean I don't I can go into this a little more if we have time in the Q&A session but I find it important to distinguish the two because here this this this hope comes from the spiritual standpoint rather than a lot of the Roma youth programs that exist today which many observers many scholars actually see as very political so there there is more of a political motivation or mobilizing the youth to fight for Roma rights and no normative message there so I'm not saying it's good or bad but with this school it's less about this political mobilization as it is about empowerment giving hope and or as as Derdak said one of the the the other founders our approach is not nationality or identity and later on he says it's really the spirituality the school is unique in many other ways they for example plan collaborations they have trips and contacts with non-Roma schools universities and communities in Hungary and beyond and this is very interesting because one would not expect the school especially when it was in Sjojo Kaza which is a very small town and the immediate question we had is is how come a a school like this would have such exchange programs and the response from Osho was we're all Buddhists so this spirituality also allows these bonds to be formed so schools and when we were there for example students were telling us about a trip to Austria which many disadvantaged students they don't leave their town let alone their country and and this exchange program was not based on a disadvantaged school with poor Roma going to Austria it was between like-minded schools Buddhist schools in this instance so there was no label attached to the students which is something that they experience all the time and so these trips were very important motivating factor because students meet their peers and they don't look at them as dirty gypsies they don't have this label of being gypsies and so they meet on par on equal level with with other young people and they see different models of youth development it's a very empowering enriching trip and and really collaborative ties that they have they have small classrooms which actually is a result of various reasons so for example in 2020 there were six seniors so six people who received their high school diploma part of it is because the Hungarian education now only requires youth up to 16 to mandatory participate in the education system so after 16 many people tend to be tempted really to join the labor market and start making money and for Roma it tends to be the public work program which again according to many studies is is really reconcerving and that that marginalized existence that they have so there's really few skills and and definitely no opportunities to develop within that I don't know I wouldn't call it a career within that work engagement most of them if not all of them are first generation high school students so they are the role models they don't have role models themselves so that's another challenge that they have and I mentioned the dormitory was open since 2018 in Mishkoz it's free for students it also provides meals for students which is a huge difference for so many of them and actually during the pandemic this is precisely what allowed for so so many students to successfully go through their education because otherwise without the structure this this pedagogical structure that the dormitories allowed they wouldn't be able to finish flexibility in their curriculum is something that sets them apart from from all the other schools and so they really focus on the interest of students that is the most important the development and empowerment of students and they recognize that in order to focus on the development of the student they have to mitigate two factors one is the poor elementary education that students receive because they come from schools as I described to you very commonly segregated and and and and and also a lot of their family backgrounds are deprived um so students here learn useful knowledge that raises their self-esteem help with coping developing coping mechanism in their socioeconomic environment it allows for students to construct a sense of self which is quite unique and it has adjusted curriculum in order to ensure a degree of accomplishment for everyone and one of them you know the sense of accomplishment and also the flexibility I want to highlight is for example a child care room we visited this child care room and it was such a big contrast because you know in my earlier visits in everyone potentially I heard about the problem of Roma girls having children early so this was always in the context of a problem this is something that the school thought was detrimental and in this school not only that it was detrimental it was seen as as normal where it was not frowned upon it was not judged if somebody had a child they could bring the child in into the child care room and the child was there receiving child care receiving you know all all they needed while their parent was in the school studying so this mentality is is really worlds apart from from what I saw in in the other schools in these mainstream schools which allowed to students to really focus on their development on their education and not see the two as mutually exclusive just because somebody has a child in their late teenage years it was not seen as their inability to really go through their education and it really was just a little adjustment in terms of adding a child care room into the school okay and I'm talking a little fast so that we can go through it and here we are in conclusion so the school represents a really big shift in pedagogy in many ways I mean one is inclusion of the spiritual component usually schools do not have any spirituality and with that they really lose out on focusing on the students self-development on on on their emotional well-being which is such an important prerequisite in order for them to succeed in in the education system in addition to that you know mentioned the the teachings of Dr. Ambedkar and and Buddhist elements of the school that were so important in providing hope in the context of poverty and marginalization and discrimination that many of the students face in their everyday life and as I said hope was very important so talking to students they many of them felt empowered many of them go through the education and apply to universities and many of them actually successfully get in it is very small classes so yes we're talking about six students in a year but it still is quite a difference for that community and in addition to that they really do quite an important work in buttressing and strengthening their identity and I put it here and actually both founders talked about it their identity as Roma their identity as Hungarian their identity as European because it's not again going back to that quote it's not about the skin color it's about what they're able to do and in order to really get to that part of enabling them there are all these spiritual flexible curriculum all these elements that the school is able to provide for these students and I actually included a trailer I don't have to show it but I can it was a documentary that was made about the school it's called Angry Buddha it was made in 2016 so I mean I can show the trailer it's it's interest but I can also send you the link and we can open for a short question and answer session whichever is the preference oh well if it is possible we can see it right now can you can you sure yes yeah please do that please do that do you see the video yeah it's coming yes okay okay I guess there is some connectivity issue okay this is it but the movies is actually available online for everyone okay all right so I think I stop presenting stop presenting okay that was my presentation so I see we're at time now but I'm happy to answer questions if there are any first of all before I open the stage for the question and answer session let me just congratulate you for enlightening us this is really was really a good session see because first of all let me just you know share with you that people are not at all aware about who the romas are right and when they speak about the word gypsy see the gypsy has been highly romanticized concept right but if you go to reality the social reality of the gypsies who are known who are basically romans right gypsy is a derogatory term which has been used you to identify the romans so that the social reality the political reality their political persecution and also the religious persecution has lot to tell us the history is very disturbing I should say but when people like you and the people who are running Dr. Ambedkar school when they come up and share their stories you know we we get to learn a lot right so in this context I really congratulate you and I open this platform for the questions so if there is any question we can take up okay before any question come let me ask you one question my question is you know the romas are not only concentrated in Hungary you know I have some of my friends also and I learned a lot from them about the Roma culture and all so I realized that there are around 10 to 12 million of romas okay the population is basically worldwide okay in Europe so my question is that what is the situation of Roma in Europe okay because we have been talking about the Hungary right so how does the Roma who are scattered all over the Europe they perceived their own social identity their political identity what do they think about themselves and what the European world the country is where in their living think about them can you please enlighten us well it's a complex question and it's it's really difficult to generalize for all of Europe because each country might have their own particularities and you know the literature actually points out to Spain sometimes as the success story and but I would say in Eastern Europe Roma are discriminated everywhere the question is in what form and shape this discrimination manifests and what are the possibilities how different the possibilities are between these countries and I mean in terms of education I really have done most of my work in education segregationist tendencies are present everywhere in all of European countries I would distinguish maybe somewhat Eastern and Western European dynamics because in Western Europe some of the Roma are migrants so they're coming from Eastern Europe and that just adds a different kind of dynamic to their exclusion because it's not local Roma as they are here but it's the Eastern European Roma so it really blends a lot with the latest prejudice against Eastern Europeans coming to Western Europe and then in addition to that the Roma and the anti-Roma sentiment so I would say in Eastern Europe all countries are really struggling with the situation Roma are struggling being in this situation and maybe I would say the the biggest development in the last potentially decade but really the last five years are the NGOs but that's also controversial because some say that even though there are more and more NGOs do they really reach out to the lowest segments of society do they really make a change to the everyday life of the Roma people in villages in Hungary or in Slovakia, Czech Republic really anywhere I personally really appreciate these bottom-up initiatives like Dr. Ambedkar School because it's local and because Roma are so diverse and I try to show you the different languages that are spoken different group labels and all this makes it increasingly difficult to have a policy and so many countries will have national policies for Roma but Roma is such a diverse group by themselves so I really like you know these these really small-scale initiatives that in my opinion can can make the most lasting change but I think the two are happening in parallel so while they're these local initiatives they're working great there's also more top-down initiatives led by NGOs which which are at a grander scale really they are the ones who are constructing a new narrative about Roma they're the ones who are writing and publishing let's say textbooks about Roma language, this is what I call standardized Roma, so they're doing in you know my opinion from from the research that I'm doing a little bit of a similar nation building than what many European countries have gone through very early on in you know nation building and state building history now we are at a different stage of really NGOs taking that role for Roma and and going through the same steps you know the flag the anthem the textbooks the language the standardization of the language writing of national history so it's a very interesting and exciting process it's just a question of how it will help Roma who are marginalized everywhere in Europe and I don't have question to that yes yes that is that is very true and that is important as well my next question to you would be in the context of the Hungarian constitutional law whether the Roma people you know the members of the Roma community have been safeguarded by the constitution of Hungary are there safeguards provided by the Hungarian constitution the way we have in India for the schedule cost and schedule tries I'm sure you are aware of it you're aware of it right so are these kinds of safeguards the social safeguards are available in the the constitution of Hungary to secure the social justice basically for the Roma people that's an excellent question and I will admit my lack of competence to answer legal questions I would say that Hungary does have to abide by the human rights regulations so they need to be provided and you know the I know that scholarship in various fields of of injustice against Roma I mean even international agreements have to provide for example clean living environment so we did a study on that and Roma tend to be highly discriminated when it comes to clean living environments so they tend to live near dumping sites and that is a violation of their human rights of their right to clean environment to live in of clean air to breathe so I would say that yes safeguards do exist both on national level and definitely on international level but it's just not enough because they're not protected and because I mean there are organizations that are also into legal protection of Roma and the very fact that they are extremely busy with cases is also an indication that their rights are being violated against existing legal structures it also shows that sometimes they don't have the adequate knowledge to really stand up for their rights and that's very understandable and in many instances you know these really vulnerable positions to not allow I mean even when you know we did the study on on dumping sites and Roma living nearby it tends to be again another paradox because some of them make a living out of the garbage that is dumped there so it's both their livelihood that they depend on and also the very source of of their you know very low health standards and all kinds of issues so and it's a clear discrimination because their rights are violated to clean environment and so I think once we get down to realities the situation is becoming so complex because if you ask some of them they will say but I need this this this is my survival I you know collect garbage here and then I sell it or I make something out of it or a burn in and then this is my heating source but at the same time you understand that this is this is really discriminatory this is really another way to go so I'm sorry I didn't answer really your question Polly but no it's it's perfectly understandable and that is really disgusting if I if I really want to express myself openly that people are living nearby the garbage I've watched a one documentary which was shot in Moldova you know that recorded you know the ghettos of the Roma population right and and then I recalled the word of Dr. V. R. Ambedkar when he was trying to contextualize the caste system he said that caste system is like a is like a tall building which does not have chair cases right so if you are born in the lower caste you have to live in the lower caste and you have to die there right so somewhere as I said in the beginning itself that you know when I was on the quest to discover Ambedkar I came to realize that there are so many parallels that can be drawn from the situation of the Roma population the Red Indian population the African American population the Indian you know the schedule caste the Dalit population the tribal population in India and somewhere I realized the common factor that can bring people together is number one the the the you know they're suffering and the second is the hope right as Dr. Ambedkar school of yours right which is actually injecting in the young minds and I think that the hope can really do miracles so please tell us about some interesting you know the cases or a success stories from Dr. Ambedkar school if you know any we will be happy to listen to them they actually are published occasionally in the Hungarian newspapers which is quite a pleasant surprise I looked actually at them right before my presentation to see if there's anything new but I mean the success stories really revolve around life stories of these students and usually these live stories you know some of the interviewed students would talk about their family background so one student talked about their father who you know was in prison when when he was still a small child and he was raised by a single mother with many siblings and it's a success story in that you know after very poor education in elementary school they he joined this high school and and reinvented himself really I mean these are all inspirational stories in a way that that imagining oneself in this extremely deprived emotionally deprived financially deprived socially deprived household outside of their own fault I mean they were just born there and then going through a school system again without much assistance because you know potentially some of the parents were one parent who is available is not able to assist if they're working parents you know they definitely don't even have time to assist with the studies and then in the very tender age of early teenage years they join a community in which you know then they would describe they had friends for the first time they had peers who understood where they were coming from they had expectations that were matching their abilities they had a sense of accomplishment which they never did and you know that's another thing that that I also saw in the school you know the more you tell somebody that they're inadequate then they will believe that they're inadequate so this internalization of these stereotypes is a very real thing and here it got reversed you know from going from going from an environment in which you hear that you know you won't do much you'll probably be a public worker anyways you sweep the streets you know don't even bother with homework that kind of messages to go into place where they hear you can be whatever you want to that is revolutionary and just you know going through these stories and really they're very diverse so this boy's story stuck with me this is all by the way from reports that were written by the school to another girl who was talking about an abusive household in which she grew up in and her mom and her you know two women basically a young girl and a young woman went into a women's shelter and so she went through her elementary school living in a women's shelter and then you know for her the biggest change was the dormitory she found some independence she found some self-esteem that she didn't have before and very similarly you know she she she reinvented herself as an independent human being in this environment and that all gave her such a big push towards wanting different things towards even recognizing that she has opportunities to study and she has opportunities to become who she wanted to and I think you know the boy probably went as an engineer but I don't remember what school they both went to universities and I think the girl went to an economics college but you know regardless of the paths that they chose I think this the story of personal growth is the one that really sticks and not many schools if any schools really can pride themselves in providing that kind of environment for this self-growth self-esteem development and as the school and this is how they're making real difference in in the lives of these students yeah absolutely that is true I mean such a transformation is taking place and we must really value it after all these are the children who are going to create a new world for tomorrow so dear friends do you have any any question for Katya I mean she will be eager to answer you any any question you know no question okay well maybe yeah maybe people are still sir I have I want to uh yes ma'am I want to inquire something I was just like typing the message trying to ask in the chat section so since time is open for question so yeah it's a for me it's my first time hearing about you know seeing Ambedkar and Hungary together so towards the beginning of your presentation you gave a very in-depth description of the Roma community there so it was a very enlightening and I opened it for me and secondly yeah as I mentioned since I'm quite new to this so I just want to hear your take on this and correct me if I'm wrong so ma'am from your presentation I I could I think I could get that the schools right this Ambedkar Buddhist schools they stress on spirituality and identity identity in the form of looking at themselves in a very positive light right more like in self-empowerment so my my query is related to the yeah political and social identity that sir also mentioned you know so I just want to know your view like can you know the spiritual side of them viewing at life right or these identities acts as a hindrance in them asserting their political rights because yeah do you think that can be responsible or it is not because when looking into some other minority community I also did a study on minority community in the northeastern region of India so here in so the focus of that community is more inclined towards religion as compared to the political aspect you know so I was just thinking because when we say about asserting political rights right it it is a bit closer to being violent right like yes we know Dandiji and all this and nonviolent effort but I'm just talking here in general and no and yeah so can it be yeah because the focus of this school can it also act as a hindrance towards you know asserting political rights and all this so I just want to understand your view on this one thank you this is a good question in a complex one too and I think yes in my slides what I was trying to apply at is that Dr Ambedkar's school's primary purpose is not political mobilization but I think it does a lot of work that is prerequisite for a successful political mobilization whereas some other programs especially those by these pro-roma NGOs have that as a primary goal it is quite visible in terms of their their but it's not these are not schools these are programs so it would be like scholarship programs or workshops being organized so there you know political nature of it is not only explicit but but more of a primary here but here I think the assumption is that once somebody's self-esteem and really education grows then by definition they will be able to understand their rights better and so the question about the rights is good because yes they don't know they they don't what their rights are when are the rights violating they have to have a very basic legal training to understand even the constitution to know well my constitutional rights are violent just a subject to hear very commonly so with education that awareness grows and with that awareness there's a more like people be more politically aware okay thank you so much thank you for the question yes okay I mean really I just want to intervene and it's absolutely correct because here I want to quote Dr. B. R. Ambedkar once again while delivering a message to the students in one of the congregation he he spoke about the educate agitate and organize this is a very complicated term the educate agitate and organize and this is a personalized message that has been given by Dr. Ambedkar to the students and he was referring to that that you know education is necessary you want to talk about transformation you want to talk about revolution you want to talk about the change you know and for that education is necessary and your self-struggle your individual struggle is also plays an important role and once you go through all that thing then the organization comes then the movement comes then and this is what we learn from the life of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar as well and I think this question needs to be taken into this context also and another thing is that this is what I've been learned from the history that the grand social movement that Dr. B. R. Ambedkar has initiated was a bloodless movement not a single drop of blood was shed in that movement and there was one Cambridge scholar I forgot his name he stated that his movement was very close to the movement of the Moses you know who actually took the people from the persecution and that is why Ambedkar was is called as the modern Moses you know so in this context we can really see that and spiritual values spiritual values did not be taken in a in a narrow sense I should say whether it is the Buddhist spiritual values or Christian spiritual values because ultimately we need to be a man who could lead further to the society so Dr. Ambedkar was imagine a society which would be lead by the leaders from the ground you know and I think this is the concept of you know Ambedkar school as well if I'm not mistaken right Kathir you want to say something about it I just want to agree with you I mean I think you said it all really well and I don't want to further comment well then then if there is no any other question then I really thank you once again for your time and we will we will keep in touch maybe together we can organize more programs and maybe we can check out more programs on the issues of the Romans and of course many more people can be invited your friends and in your circle so at the end I can tell you that the voice of the operas is one you know and when we are together we can actually together make this world a better place so with this positive note I conclude this program so Kathir thank you so much for your time thank you thank you have a have a good day have a good day and thank you all of you for participating thank you so much see you later again