"They don't teach us nicely like we're talking here; they scream at the top of their lungs. And we repeat things—we've been repeating the same thing for three years. They give an 'A' just for knowing one times one." (Student)
"The kids went into school today, the teacher stands at the door and checks every child's hands, their nails, things like that. What clothes they are wearing, what pants, literally. Humiliating." (Parent)
"Not a big deal," one might say. Just typical school occurrences: shouting, arguing, punishment, and humiliation are frequent experiences for Roma children. They aren't liked at school, and they don't like school much either. It is no coincidence that two-thirds of them drop out early, with at most an eighth-grade education, starting adult life with the "calmness" of the hopeless. Meanwhile, they have never heard of the values, rights, and opportunities that—even if they are poor Roma living in settlements or small villages—apply to them just as much as anyone else.
What do children's rights mean? What do the common values of the European Union convey? What is the EU anyway? What are parent and student rights and obligations at school? Can a child be banned from after-school care? Can they be kicked out even if the institution breaks the rules? How do we initiate change?
The SZETA Eger Foundation sought answers to these and many similar questions with parents and children living in the Béke settlement in Eger and four surrounding small villages. They met more than twenty times, organizing two-day meetings and summer camps, allowing time to gather experiences, find at least some of the answers, and launch concrete cases. They worked together with 50 parents and 20 children, as well as local organizations, for months.
- They prevented the "counseling out" (forced departure) of two primary school students from a high-quality district school;
- They collectively ensured that the village school "looks like something," with events and programs;
- In a village of 300 people without a school, they initiated a plan for children to travel safely to the city institution.
In the process, they showed many what abstract concepts like dignity, freedom, and solidarity mean in practice, and how these can be interpreted while representing one's own interests. As they say, it was no coincidence they applied for the program, as they have long held the motto—borrowed from Ottilia Solt, a founder of the national SZETA—"Dignity for everyone."
The SZETA Eger Foundation was established ten years after the founding of the "big SZETA" in 1979 and has been operating ever since. The focus of their daily activities is on learning support for children and youth, and the intensive, multifaceted support of their school progress. In the process, they have gained significant experience regarding the operational methods and practices of schools, especially concerning the hidden selection mechanisms affecting disadvantaged, "problematic" children.
And according to them, "this is a fairly big deal." Zsuzsa Ferge wrote decades earlier that “the school's function of counterbalancing social environmental effects can only unfold on the soil of a pedagogy that does not wait for disadvantages to unfold and manifest in academic results, but purposefully strives to reduce disadvantages from the first moment of entry into the educational institution (in fact, already in kindergarten, or even earlier...).”
They would be happy if we were already at that point.
