RomaNet
https://romanet.me/
RomaNet is a Roma outlet launched in November 2017 under the name Romalitika and renamed RomaNet two years later. The founder is the Roma youth organisation Koračajte sa nama - Phiren Amenca, headed by the first Roma TV editor and presenter in Montenegro, Elvis Berisha.
The intention of the founders was to have young people from the Roma community leading the outlet but this was a challenge because, they claim, journalism is often viewed negatively by many community members.
"They see it as a way to expose everything bad in the Roma community and its customs. No one could have guessed that someone would engage in activist work through journalism," says founder Elvis Berisha.
Berisha explains that they overcame these problems by solving some of the most topical issues affecting Roma settlements. For example, they wrote about the fact that in some Roma settlements there were no vehicle retarders on roads and cars moved at high speed, which led to frequent traffic accidents, often endangering people's lives. The team did not report only about the problem, but also wrote to the local municipality and finally solved it. "Our interlocutors then realised that, with the help of journalism, you can influence change, and so their approach and attitude towards us has changed," Berisha says.
RomaNet's goal is not only to raise the general public's awareness of the Roma community, but also to reduce stereotypes and prejudices toward them.
For the first 18 months the team, which consisted of people in high school or university, worked voluntarily. In 2019, the media outlet received project-based grant funding, enabling it to hire three people and purchase equipment. However, the outlet's sustainability is still on stake. According to the team, although project-based grant funding enables editorial independence, it also creates enormous uncertainty. In addition, insufficient funds make it difficult to promote the publication.
Currently the team amounts to four journalists and the founder/editor. The articles are written in the Montenegrin and Romani languages, although there are fewer texts in Romani because they do not have the possibility to hire enough journalists from the community.
Last updated: January 2023