Dr. Ambedkar School

En Hongrie, plus de la moitié des jeunes passent leur bac, mais seuls 5% des enfants tsiganes obtiennent ce diplôme. Tibor Derdak, enseignant et ancien député au premier parlement démocratiquement élu en 1990, milite pour un autre système d’éducation, plus adapté aux jeunes tsiganes. Il a fondé le lycée Ambedkar, unique en Hongrie.

Get the Flash Player to see this player. Ouvert fin 2007, il accueille aujourd’hui plus de 200 élèves : en majorité des roms, mais il est ouvert à tous ceux, jeunes ou adultes, qui souhaitent passer le bac. Un reportage de Florence la Bruyère.

Source: Radio France Internationale

Something I notice is different in Hungary is this: whenever you catch a train Hungarians seem very reserved. The other thing is once you are out of Budapest the passengers don’t go out the station through a barrier with a ticket collector as they do in my country. They simply walk off across the fields in the direction of their home. To me this all looks very strange.

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Istvan Lazi, a Hungarian Dalit, speaks of struggles for a better life.

My name is Istvan Lazi. My nickname is Benu. I was born at Kazincbarcika, in Northern Hungary, in 1987. My family are gypsies. It is difficult for non-gypsies to understand what that really means. Most non-gypsies think it is a matter of race or skin colour, but it is not. To be a gypsy is a belonging. It is to be part of a community where everyone knows, ‘We are gypsies’. Gypsies are a community of people who have the same way of thinking about things. Even though skin colour is not the main point about being a gypsy, many gypsies are dark skinned. When two Buddhist friends visited us recently from India, people seeing us together thought they were my relatives. If an Indian doesn’t speak English then people in Hungary will think he is a gypsy.

In my village there are several gypsy localities, all separate from the non-gypsies. There is the gypsy locality where I live - most of these, my people, are gypsies who have been in Hungary for many centuries and speak Hungarian. There is another smaller gypsy locality for Vlach gypsies who came from Romania a century or so ago and speak the ancient gypsy language, which is quite similar to Hindi and other North Indian languages. The number of gypsies is growing in my village as more gypsy families move in and they are now in the majority. So conflicts are growing with the non-gypsies because none of them want a gypsy neighbour. The mayors of many Hungarian villages are always counting how many gypsies there are in the village - because it is obvious that they are becoming the majority and that they do not want.

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On December 1st, 2008, we will have a special guest, the Reverend Victor István, a Hungarian, Presbyterian priest. Reverend István spent his childhood in a Christian community where many Jewish people had to be rescued from Fascist persecution, in 1944.

The father of our guest, Victor János, made great efforts in 1944 – with members of his Liberty Square Temple – to rescue Jews and other persecuted people in Budapest. Before their rescue, many of these Jews resorted to hiding within the church; inside mattresses, under the church’s flooring; where ever there was safety. At times, this meant receiving false papers stating that they were not Jewish, but in fact Christian. Victor János was fully aware that he was risking the very lives of his own family…nevertheless, he perservered. Liberty Square Temple deserves its beautiful name: “Freedom,” “Place,” “Temple” – a holy space, where we can be proud of our liberty.

The Yad Vashem Institute, in Jerusalem awarded Victor János the Righteous of the World Award, in 1994.

It is a pity that nowdays the Liberty Square Temple gives shelter to ideas not in line with its original model.

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We hebben jullie school enkele malen bezocht nadat Zoltán Ulicska van Sulinova ons gezegd had dat jullie vast wel contact wilden met andere scholen omdat jullie in moeilijke omstandigheden onderwijs verzorgen. Die moeilijke omstandigheden zijn een eufemise. De stap die de zigeunergemeenschap moet zetten is gigantisch groot en de situatie is niet eenvoudig te veranderen. Zigeuners hebben het nergens gemakkelijk maar in het voormalige Oost-blok is sinds de val van de Muur de achterstand groter geworden in plaats van kleiner.

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