Report on Khetanipe Romano Centro’s Participation in the Summer Workshop Camp: Krzyżowa 2025, supported by the International Visegrad Fund

Khetanipe Romano Centro is a Roma-led non-governmental organisation based in Pécs, Hungary. The organisation is committed to promoting the social inclusion and empowerment of the Roma community through various educational, cultural, and advocacy initiatives. Among its core missions, supporting the education of Romani children and youth plays a particularly prominent role, aiming to foster equal opportunities and reduce educational disadvantages.

In the last 20 years, the organisation has invested resources in providing after-school activities for Romani and disadvantaged children and youth in Pécs city’s largest Romani settlement. These include private and small-group tutoring to support successful educational progress, with the overall goal of reducing the dropout rates of students in the settlement’s school, where the proportion of Roma students is exceptionally high, resulting in a form of spontaneous segregation.

Khetanipe also offers programmes for children to develop their skills through extracurricular activities, such as excursions to cinemas, museums, and theatres.

Khetanipe Romano Centro was pleased to collaborate as a partner with the Poland-based organisation Fundacja Dom Kultury on the Summer Workshop Camp: Krzyżowa 2025, which was supported by the International Visegrad Fund.

Khetanipe Romano Centro participated in the Summer Workshop Camp in Krzyżowa, Poland, between 17 and 22 August 2025 with six young participants and two youth workers as group leaders, who were also under 30 years of age. The Summer Workshop Camp provided exceptional opportunities for Romani youngsters with fewer opportunities to experience the values of international youth activities.

For most of Khetanipe’s participants, this was their first time travelling abroad. Before the trip, the youngsters expressed fears about communicating with other participants and using foreign languages, such as English, during the Summer Workshop Camp. After spending time with participants from partner organisations, they later expressed during the evaluation that they felt more confident communicating with people from other nationalities because they had practised overcoming the lack of a shared language by using alternative methods.

The participants were satisfied with the accommodation and meals provided at the International Youth Meeting Centre in Krzyżowa, Poland. They felt that the hosts were welcoming and that the organisers provided a venue where the comfort level was high and the facilities perfectly suited the activities.

The participants highlighted the support of the main organisers, the colleagues of Fundacja Dom Kultury, during the Summer Workshop Camp. They were satisfied with the organisation and the activities, which were varied and creative. Participants felt that the organisers paid attention to their needs and considered them, and they highlighted that the colleagues of Fundacja Dom Kultury were supportive, friendly, and welcoming. Khetanipe, as a partner organisation, highly values the work and efforts of Fundacja Dom Kultury and their professionalism in working with disadvantaged youth and their engagement in supporting Romani culture and identity.

Among the Hungarian participants, few had experience with non-formal educational methods, so this was a special, new form of learning for them, which they greatly enjoyed.

Among the programmes, they mentioned the video workshop led by Delfin Lakatos. They really enjoyed experiencing the creative process of video and photo making.

The workshops focusing on identity and language were a positive affirmation for them. They felt that meeting Roma communities from different countries (Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Poland) helped them to better understand their own connection to their Romani identity. Most of the Hungarian participants belong to the Hungarian Boyash community, which has its own language, different from the Romani language spoken by the Vlach Roma. All participants felt that knowledge of the Romani and Boyash languages is extremely important, and they expressed that after the Summer Workshop Camp they felt sadness that they do not use Boyash or Romani in their daily life.

The participants enjoyed the cooking, dancing, and music workshops, where they could compare and recognise similarities among the Hungarian, Slovak, Czech, and Polish Romani communities. They loved learning about Romani culture and sharing time with all participants in informal settings as well. Their visit to Świdnica was mentioned several times during our evaluation as a great opportunity to explore Poland and interact with the local Polish community.

Overall, the participants returned home with an unforgettable experience and a strong willingness to be involved in other international youth activities.