Roma Environmental Justice Workshop

Thursday 16 June, 9:00 -13:00, Brussels

The EEB and ERGO, in collaboration with EnvJustice launched the Pushed to the Wastelands report, which tried to connect how antigypsyism connects with the environment resulting in what is understood as environmental racism. As a result of this report, the European Commission included in its post-2020 Roma framework, a headline target meant to address environmental injustice.

Though the recognition of the need for environmental justice is a first much-needed step forward, the time is now to move beyond recognition and toward legislative action and implementation. This workshop aims to bring together Roma rights activists with environmental advocates. We want to kick start a loose network of people working on environmental justice with communities across our region with a focus on Roma. This workshop will also serve as a way to learn about the level of ambition of member states to address environmental justice within their national Roma strategies, learn about environmental racism, a new research project highlighting environmental racism in Western Europe, and network and connect to plan the next steps.

The schedule of the workshop will be as follows:

9:00 – 10:15 Various speakers on Roma Environmental Justice

Patrizia Heidegger (EEB), Gabriela Hrabanova (ERGO) will introduce us to the workshop. Mustafa Jakupov and Diego Marin will speak about the link between anti-gipsyism and the environment, and researchers from the Springloop Cooperatie will speak on the role of informal recyclers. The link between access to justice and the Aarhus convention will be elaborated upon by Summer Kern. We will end this section with a Q&A.

10:15 – 10:25 – Coffee Break

10:25 – 11:00 Projects on Roma Environmental Justice

We will be introduced to the ENHOJUST project by Enikő Vincze, which deals with housing, pollution, and spatial segregation, as well as EERC represented by Vivien who will tell us about housing, law, and environmental justice. Isabela Mihalache from ERGO will update us on the Roma Civil Monitoring and National Roma Strategies and the importance of environmental justice within these national strategies. A Q&A will be included at the end of this section.

11:15 – 12:15 – Open Discussions and Brainstorm

In this part of the workshop, we will split up into groups and have two sessions where we discuss (1) concerns, opportunities, and challenges regarding environmental justice, and (2) how we connect environmental NGOs and Roma rights NGOs together for environmental justice. We will share our ideas and findings with the whole group and foster a connection between our work and organsiations in the process. We will find out where the scope for collaboration on this topic is and what projects could benefit both, as well as come up with some concrete ideas where the environment and Roma could benefit.

12 :15-13:00 – Break for Lunch

Lunch (vegetarian and vegan Indian food) will be provided.

If you would like to join and want to know more about it, please contact Diego Marin, Associate Policy Officer for Environmental Justice at diego.marin@eeb.org  

We look forward to seeing you there!