18/04/2024
FSG Participación
This group of young people had the opportunity to meet with different political representatives to share their proposals and discuss different areas such as education, youth employment, housing and non-discrimination.
During the past week, a group of young Roma members of the FSG's network of facilitators travelled to Brussels to meet with different key actors, to learn about issues that concern to European citizens and what proposals are being worked on by the institutions to respond to them in view of the European elections that will take place this year.
On 16 April, the group of young Roma met with the president of the European Youth Forum, María Rodríguez, to learn about the role played by this platform, as well as the issues that most concern European youth and those that need to be addressed for them to have a better quality of life. Among other issues, paid internships and access to decent housing were discussed.
On 17 April, the group of young Roma visited the European Parliament to meet with different political representatives and discuss issues concerning European citizenship and Roma youth in particular. They also took a guided tour to learn more about the European Union and the work of the Parliament.
MEPs Rosa Estaràs from the Partido Popular, Mónica Silvana and Alícia Homs from the PSOE and Jordi Cañas from Ciudadanos, took part in this meeting, with whom they discussed issues related to housing, education, employment, non-discrimination and the policies that affect the Roma population that are being worked on in Europe.
This initiative is part of a broader participation process aimed at informing Roma of the importance of taking a more active part in EU initiatives, in this case, in the upcoming European elections, as these are issues that affect Roma in their daily lives. This participation process will be implemented over the coming months in which we will be working on sessions with groups of FSG programmes’ participants in different Spanish localities under the slogan: Voz y Voto, las voces gitanas en las elecciones europeas (Voice and Vote, Roma voices in the European elections).
FSG would like to thank the different key actors for their willingness to establish this type of space, as we believe that it is a good way for the opinions of Roma youth to be taken into account in decisive spaces.