“30 years ago, it was hard to imagine that a Roma woman could create an organisation”: activist Yuliia Kondur on the importance of women’s leadership

Taking into account the complex realities of a full-scale war and social changes in Ukraine, the issue of protection and support for vulnerable groups, including the Roma community, is becoming even more urgent. The role of Roma women is particularly important, as they not only overcome the challenges of war, but also actively influence the development of their communities by defending their rights and interests.

ZMINA spoke to Yuliia Kondur, a civil activist, artist, founder and president of the Roma Women’s Fund Chiricli.

The importance of education for Roma children and youth, the development of the Roma women’s movement, the difficulties faced by Roma women today, and how their activism and resilience help to rebuild the country – read more in the interview.

Yulia, could you please share how you personally became involved in public activities? What was the motivation that led you to establish the Izmail Roma Association many years ago? 

The idea to create the Roma Association came a long time ago – back when my husband, Anatolii Fedorovych Kondur, and I were engaged in choreography and music. This is our profession, and even then I was thinking about how to help Roma children integrate into modern society through choreography and cultural programmes.

In Izmail, where we lived, many Roma children did not attend school, were forced to beg, and sometimes even broke the law. It was a serious problem. There were about 100 Roma families in the city, many of them with many children. I was concerned about this situation, and together with my husband we wanted to change something.

My husband, as the son of a baron, had authority among the Roma, which helped a lot in our work. People came to us for advice and support. Anatolii was especially concerned about the fate of the children, even in the evenings he would get on his bike and ride around the city to make sure that the teenagers did not stay out late, and he was worried that no one would offend them.

When I learned from the newspaper that it was possible to set up non-governmental organisations and get premises for this purpose, it was an impetus for me. We wanted to create a centre where we could work not only with children but also with their mothers. The situation was very difficult, as it is now in Zakarpattia.

We managed to get the premises from the local administration, although we had to pay all the costs. It was not an easy path, but it was important for us to help the Roma community. That’s how we opened the first Roma centre and pre-school for Roma children at that time.

We had the first Roma Sunday school in Ukraine. We worked with families there for seven years, conducting classes for children and involving their mothers in the active life of the community. This was the beginning of the active development of our work.

Thanks to this, many children started attending school. On weekends, they came to our centre, where we taught them the basics of professions, such as cooking, as well as Roma, Ukrainian and English languages. One of our students later graduated from a higher education institution, became a chef and now, if I’m not mistaken, even works on river cruises. We are also very proud of the athlete Stepan Chebotar, who opened his own school and trains children from low-income families free of charge.

When we moved from Izmail, the Roma community there was practically left without support. People said they lacked the protection we provided them. However, our work has yielded important results: we were able to change attitudes towards education, helped many children find their way and demonstrated that the Roma community can develop and adapt to society.

The Izmail Roma Association has implemented many important initiatives that have had a significant impact on the local community. Among your projects, are there any that you consider to be the most significant and influential? Could you tell us more about these initiatives: what problems did they solve, how did they affect the community, and what did you achieve?

One of the most important and powerful projects concerned payments to victims of Nazism – Holocaust survivors. We worked together with other organisations all over Ukraine – there were 17 of them. We collected and documented these stories, and after five years, thanks to cooperation with international organisations and American courts, we managed to provide financial assistance to our Roma through Swiss banks. It was a serious work at the national and international levels, and, thank God, people received this support. Since then, programmes have been added, and, importantly, they are still working today.

Another important project that I am personally very interested in is the programme to support Roma women. As we know, in our culture, women are often influenced by traditional views: being a mother is their main role, and professional development remains in the background. Unfortunately, this is often the case in many Eastern countries.

But through our own family experience, my husband and I have shown that it is possible to live differently. We became an example for many Roma families. It was very important, because in our community, in particular in Bessarabia, where we were practically like a family, people started to listen to our experience. Local Roma came to us seeking advice and support, because it was something new for them.

You stood at the origins of the Roma women’s movement in Ukraine and founded the first international organisation of its kind, the Roma Women’s Fund Chiricli. Being the first in something is often quite difficult, but interesting. How was it for you? 

You know, when you do good things for others, you don’t expect praise or gratitude. You just do it because you feel it is necessary. Perhaps that’s why, when we started working in Odesa region, we didn’t think we would face any difficulties or distrust. It was just the first step on the way to big changes, and everything became possible thanks to the support of our family and community. It all started with the first Roma women’s conference, which we held together with the Council of Europe. After that, we started developing programmes for women. Of course, it was difficult, there was a lot of resistance from male leaders. However, over time, they became our partners.

Previously, our organisation had no legal status. When my husband passed away, I realised that I could not continue to work within the association that functioned under his leadership. That’s why we decided to create the International Women’s Fund Chiricli. Why a women’s fund? I wanted to unite women, to give them the opportunity not only to receive help but also to become leaders. At the time, it was hard to imagine that a woman could be an activist, let alone create an organisation.

The beginning was not easy, but we gradually worked on community outreach, building a dialogue with the authorities and international organisations. 75 women and men were trained in mediation. In fact, the results of the mediators’ work are simply impossible to describe. Today, they are the most important partners of many Roma, doctors, social workers, local authorities and NGOs.

I grew up in a traditional Roma family, where women’s role was mostly limited to taking care of the family. But I wanted to change this. I wanted my children to have an education, not to face discrimination, so that they could fulfil themselves. I went through many difficulties, intolerance and injustice.

It hurts me to remember how my daughter Kapitolina was ignored by teachers for a whole year, not called to the blackboard. And it was because of her ethnicity. The school principal could not explain why my child was ignored. And because of the discrimination, she was forced to change schools. But despite all this, she graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and received several higher education degrees. Unfortunately, such cases of discrimination still exist today, but we are trying to deal with it. 

At the end of 2024, the Roma women’s movement will be 30 years old. How do you assess this path? How did the involvement of women in activism in general affect the life of the Roma community in Ukraine and what role did the Fund Chiricli play in this?

The unification of Roma women in the early 1990s had a great impact not only on the Roma organisations themselves, but also on their families and communities in general. The Roma women’s movement is a specific organisation of social activities of Roma women aimed at combating discrimination and promoting equality in all spheres of society. However, in practice, the launch of the Roma women’s movement has had a much broader impact. Its transformation continues today, giving strength to all Roma organisations in our country.

We conducted the first studies on early marriage, Roma girls’ access to education, the role of women in communities, access to social and medical services, and cases of discrimination in Ukraine. All this helped us to build programmes aimed at solving the problems of Roma communities. In 2003, for the first time, we held Committee hearings on the situation of Roma in Ukraine with the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Human Rights. It was an extremely important event for our community and Ukraine.

One of our key achievements was that our fund was the first among Roma NGOs to write shadow reports to the UN, the Council of Europe and the OSCE. We have raised the issue of discrimination at the international level, filed complaints and defended the rights of victims at both national and international levels. We continue to monitor the observance of Roma rights on an ongoing basis today.

An important step for our community was the approval in 2003 of the Roma State Programme – the Programme for the Social and Spiritual Revival of Roma of Ukraine for the period up to 2006. Even then we stressed the need for its effective implementation. Thanks to joint efforts, we managed to develop and adopt the Roma Strategy in 2013. In addition, the Fund Chiricli initiated the creation of a secretariat to coordinate the work of the interagency working group, which was engaged in the implementation of the action plan for the implementation of the Strategy for the Protection and Integration of the Roma National Minority into Ukrainian Society until 2020.

We also ensured the participation of five Roma representatives in this group, two of whom were women. This may sound like a natural thing to do today, but at the time it took a titanic effort, and we are grateful to our partners – the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the Renaissance Foundation – who worked with us on this. 

I would also like to emphasise the importance of creating platforms for dialogue between Roma communities, authorities and NGOs. This helped to involve Roma in decision-making and implementation of state policy during the war. In particular, the Task Force (a working group to promote the rights of Roma women) ensured effective coordination between government agencies and civil society representatives.

In summary, we have also supported the establishment of many organisations, including Roma women’s organisations and youth organisations. The Roma community is gradually changing, and we see many Roma women and men beginning to play an active role in political life. This is just the beginning, and we will continue to work to ensure that our people have the opportunity to be represented at all levels – from local elections to national policy.

Although we are a women’s fund, our activities are aimed not only at supporting women, but also men and Roma communities in general. Our events always have a gender balance, and men are actively involved in the work. Unfortunately, due to the full-scale war, many people were forced to leave, but we continue to keep in touch with them and work both in Ukraine and abroad. Thanks to our extensive experience and mutual respect with our partners, our organisation builds effective cooperation. We are open to dialogue and are ready to help anyone who applies, regardless of the time of day.

You have done a lot to ensure that young people and future generations of Roma can know, appreciate and be proud of their roots. With this in mind, I am interested to hear your opinion on the role of Roma women in this process. How do you think they contribute to the preservation of culture, traditions and identity?

Many of our women, especially the older ones, are very cautious about how young people perceive traditions. Roma communities are developing, young people are getting more and more educated, and some of our traditions are also being updated. Together with our partner organisations and mediators, we are actively working to convey the importance of preserving our native language. We are making great progress in developing the Roma alphabet, which is an important step in preserving our culture. 

Language is the foundation of our culture. It is a cornerstone of our culture and an important element of social integration in Ukraine. That is why we are working hard to implement non-intrusive educational programmes aimed at preserving language and identity. Over the past year, we have supported the opening of the Roma Youth Centre in Kirovograd region, an educational centre in Sumy and events to support Roma children and youth. 

We continue to work with communities and communities across Ukraine. As an organisation, we are part of the Council of National Communities of Ukraine and will be holding more events within this association to teach others to respect and value each other, together with other national communities. This is important for national unity in Ukraine, as we are a large multinational country.

In addition to cultural issues, we talked a lot about education today. Do you agree that this is a very relevant and acute issue today? 

Yes, of course. Now we see Roma children already attending kindergartens, studying, dancing and choreography. We are opening educational centres, supporting them on our own so far, but we want this to become a joint effort with government institutions.

It is important that our children have the opportunity to study from an early age – pre-school – and continue to higher education. We are also planning to submit a proposal to the authorities on study quotas for Roma children at universities so that they can get higher education.

In addition, the programmes of the Renaissance Foundation have always been and remain extremely important for the development of education of Roma children. It is thanks to them that many of our children were able to get higher education, which was a significant step forward for our entire community. I am extremely grateful to this organisation for such support.

For many years, the Fund Chiricli has played an important role in supporting the Roma community, especially in times of crisis. The full-scale war has undoubtedly brought new challenges for many people, including Roma. I would like to know more about your experience: how does the organisation overcome these challenges faced by Roma during the war?

No matter how you look at it, the war has become a turning point in many ways. When it began in 2014, our organisation immediately joined in to help those in need: evacuating people, providing food, water, and clothing. In February 2022, we were among the first to adapt all of our programmes and start providing assistance to people, including housing, evacuation, food, and information services. We are extremely grateful to our Finnish partners who responded promptly to our request.

Over time, we have opened shelters for Roma women, but now we accept anyone who needs help. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Roma Women’s Fund has been working in new conditions: supporting IDPs, responding quickly to constant challenges, but at the same time continuing advocacy at the national and international levels. On international platforms, we talk a lot about the consequences of the war and the needs of people.

Today, Chiricli’s focus is on supporting Roma communities affected by the hostilities. We provide for their basic needs through a network of Roma intermediaries, which remains an important tool for equal access to humanitarian aid, medical services, as well as for obtaining documents and protecting the rights of internally displaced persons.

We are also actively working to develop vocational education for Roma women, which helps them acquire new skills and integrate into the economy in times of war. As part of the Power of Roma Women project, 500 participants received vocational training with scholarships.

In addition, our team is documenting war-related violations of Roma rights and highlighting the role of Roma men in the direct defence of Ukraine. We continue to implement humanitarian and social programmes to help Roma cope with the consequences of the war and rebuild their communities.

The mediators on the ground have taken on a huge responsibility, helping the army, local Roma, and IDP Roma. It is incredibly difficult. For example, in the Zaporizhzhia region, they came and helped people living on the frontline under fire. They still work there despite the risks that exist in a frontline city. 

These people are extremely strong. They did not leave their homes and places of compact residence, but continue to work: in Odesa and Odesa region, in Kropyvnytskyi, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Lutsk, Vinnytsia, and Zakarpattia. Many Roma also went to the frontline. We support them by weaving nets and sending aid.

It is important that women also played a central role during the war and will play a central role in the country’s recovery. I would also like to say this: all Ukrainians are working now – some at the front, some in the rear. We are all bringing victory closer together.

Your story about the life of the Roma community during the war is impressive, because such resilience and activity is a real example for many. What, in your opinion, should be the main focus of attention today?

I don’t want to look too far ahead, but we already have concrete plans. First of all, we will rebuild the country together with all the people of Ukraine – this is our priority. We will also focus on education, especially for children, because it is the foundation for the future. Education gives people the opportunity to change their lives.

In addition, we will work to ensure that Roma leaders – both men and women – hold important positions at the state level. Currently, there are almost no such leaders, and this is a big problem. I see representatives of the Roma community in Europe working in international organisations, ministries, parliaments, and schools. We also strive to reach this level.

In conclusion, I would like to know what inspires you the most in your work?

If a person says: “You helped me to cure a close relative” – or simply thanks me for specific help, for example, for someone getting a passport or for the electricity in the settlement, I think, “I’m on the right track. I want others to feel good”. And it gives me strength. You realise that you are doing something meaningful.

It is important for me to see that all the programmes and opportunities we have created over 30 years of work are now actively used by young people, and they do not even realise that things used to be different.

Of course, not everything is perfect, there are still many problems that need to be addressed, but together we will build and rebuild our country. The main thing is to have peace and mutual understanding between people.