The spokesman for Karipen in Tenerife, José Carmona, thanked this Monday for the involvement of the Tenerife Council with the Roma people in the last four years, but has asked that the corporation take over from Congress and, “together with us”, create a insular pact against antigypsyism.
Request that José Carmona has made before the reading of a manifesto on the occasion of the International Day of the Roma People, and has added that the Cabildo de Tenerife “has been sensitive to our demands, has created a participatory table and has sat down with us, equal to equal, to make policies for the collective”.
The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, has expressed the need “to keep the doors open to the gypsy people throughout the year”, and not only on the occasion of the International Day of the Roma People, after listening to the manifesto of the ethnic community to the gates of the insular institution.
Pedro Martín has highlighted that if the policies aimed at the Roma community are approved without budgets, “they will only remain good intentions”, statements that refer to the first pact against anti-gypsyism, approved in the Congress of Deputies, “without budget items ”, according to José Carmona has assured.
In addition to the presence of the president of the Cabildo and the spokesperson for the sociocultural association, the CEO of Equality and Prevention of Gender Violence of the island institution, Priscila de León, and the president of the Romi women’s association Camela Nakerar, Josefa Santiago.
Priscila de León has highlighted the work of the Roma people’s table in the Cabildo de Tenerife, which has made possible the celebration of the commemorative day, at the same time that she has expressed “the firm commitment” of the institution “in the fight against anti-gypsyism” .
Through the voice of two members of the Karipen socio-cultural association, Francisco Carmona and Concepción Escalona, a manifesto has been read in which emphasis has been placed on the progress of the Roma community since April 8, 1971.
On that date, the First World Roma Congress was held, which “institutionalized the Roma flag, with a blue and green stripe and a 16-spoke wheel that represents our pilgrimage, the commitment to the international anthem Gelem Gelem and the standardization of the Romani language. ”.
In addition to evolution, the manifesto has claimed the “denial of identity and exclusion that has been part of its history for 600 years”, while calling for “the promulgation of the statute of the gypsy people”, which recognizes and guarantees the identity, freedom and rights of the people.
With the reading of poems by who was “the first poet”, the Papusza, and the story of a gypsy woman through the testimony of Josefa Santiago, president of Romi Camela Nakerar, “women, as the backbone of the gypsy people”, and its institutional advances, such as the women’s commission that exists in the Tenerife Council.
At the end of the act, the groups have delivered, as a sign of gratitude, the gypsy flag to the president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín.
