Gypsy Fundraiser to help Anita Dolinska a success

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday December 02, 2002 17:03 by Chelo - Galway Rromani Support Group cheliguay at hotmail dot com

BAXTALO!!

The Dinner party held in our house to help Anita Dolinska was a beautiful night of cultural diversity with delicious food and marvelous world music. We want to thank all who supported us.

The Dinner party held in our house to help Anita Dolinska was a beautiful night of cultural diversity with delicious food and marvelous world music.
We want to thank all who supported us.

At first some of us felt a bit uneasy about holding a fundraiser in our house when normal places for this would be hotels, restaurants etc. However once cleared the doubts and given the short time that we have to raise money for Anita we went ahead. Some questions come to my mind now...why should we give so much power to hotels and institutions if we can open our hearts and our houses to other peolpe? Certainly it was a fundraiser, but we know it was a worthy cause and the atmosphere was much more close and intimate than that we might have had in a public restaurant or hotel. Children were able to assist and they had a great night also playing games and even having a 'sumo' exhibition that (i heard)was very funny. When the time for music and storytelling by the fire began children were safely sleepy at their grandparents and parents feet and we had all time and space to enjoy greatly.More of this events (i think) should take place in houses, even though the focus might not always need be to fundraise but just to exchange and really get to know our neighbours of different cultures.
In this case we have raised about 500 euros already between the two events(there was the night of cultural diversity and resistance with gypsy music in Richardson's Pub two weeks ago). Thanks to all the restaurants and shops who donated food, bread, recipies and to the musicians and storytellers involved as well to everyone who were there from the grassroots(everyone i think)`.I will be going to Poland on the 10th of December to bring Anita's winter clothes and money to help her and her son Emiliano deported from Ireland last May. We will explore together possible solutions as Anita has very serious health problems and we need to know what to do while she gets an operation.For those of you who do not know the case Anita was a volonteer for the Galway One World Center for two and a half years. She was also a memeber of the management commitee. Since she and her 2 and a half years old son were deported her health has worsened very much. Anita is twenty three years old and we want her back in Ireland as she is a respected member of our society and a strong pillar to Rromani human rights struggle in Ireland.Mostly we want her back because she is our friend. But we also want the deportations to to stop..except for the warplanes in Shannon and their accomplice warmongers who should indeed be deported somewhere very far away...(if possible with eternal fire). We want people from all ethnic groups and nationalities to enrich our own culture.Would anyone be interested in creating an antideportation network??
During our dinner fundraiser we talked about Rromani (gypsy) culture. How this ancestral travelling community coming to Europe from India a thousand years ago have influenced our own cultures throughout Europe. How the news (the real warm news about births, festivals, deaths, disease and more reality) were spread by gypsy women and men travelling with their families to wherever place they were welcome.
600.000 of us were killed in concentration camps during Nazi times. For us the holocaust continues as racism and discrimination is still experienced from the most southern parts of Europe to the North.But we want to tell you. We may (as many survivors of disasters do)have very different habits, rituals, beliefs and sometimes even self destructive habits that seem so strange to you, the Gadge(the non-Rroma or gypsy)(well the gaadge do also have self destructive habits...if we judge by the state of rivers and air pollution quite bad). However, if you take the time to open your hearts and ears and to share with us you might come to realize how much your people has been missing for so many years...how much of your own emotion is locked up in your criticism of our own emotions, how much of your own creativity is stiffled when your dissaproval of our (sometimes) loud expressions of feelings and creativity are reppressed or made dissappear for fear that we 'infect' your 'good behavior'. Our people have very strog respect for nature. While we are travelling accross Europe and the World we follow the ways of the fox...we have a wisdom to share that is real and so different from the cold news that we get in TV that it may feel unconfortable at first.Nevertheless...there is so much reality in that that we feel indeed very close to the divine. This is why perhaps there is an aura of magic and mystery around the Rroma- gypsy culture...perhaps...but please try to know us and make up your own mind.
Baxtalo!!! Luck and health to you. Chelo
PS. Thanks to all of you who put up the Rromani Flag in our Writing in Indymedia as i'm not that experienced yet in this bussiness..