'I think the Government was hoping we would leave'

Some 3,000 Roma live here, but due to their high rate of illiteracy they are more marginalised than most immigrants. English classes offer a keyto integration

Women selling the Big Issues or begging with babes in their arms are the images most people have of the Roma. But at Pavee Point Travellers Centre in Dublin city centre, the Roma group of 20 men and women who have gathered to learn English on a Fás course insist they would never beg. They say the beggars represent only 5 to 10 per cent of the total Roma community in the State that numbers about 3,000.

They want to learn English, they say, so that they can get jobs, buy houses and become successful like anyone else.

Mataj Medejmek, in his 30s, has applied for jobs but doesn't get called for interview. "Without this course I have no chance of a life in Ireland," he says.

Albert Sebcik (22) is, like most of the others, sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a rented room that is home to six people. He wants a job in construction.

A woman in her 30s, Maria Cicova, says that the eldest of her five daughters wants to be a doctor and is going to school every day. Another daughter wants to be an engineer. This is unusual in Roma culture, where girls are often taken out of school at puberty and expected to marry and have families at a young age.

At Pavee Point, all of the women and men aged 20 to 55 say they want to get jobs. Unfortunately, they have to use an interpreter to say this. Some have been in the State for as long as seven years, but the Pavee Point course is the first opportunity they've been given to learn English.

The Roma who attend Pavee Point live in Dublin 7, where there is conflict building up between them and the local majority community, according to Louise Lesovitch's report, Roma Educational Needs in Ireland, published by the CDVEC in association with Pavee Point Travellers Centre and the Roma Support Group.

Ronnie Fay, director of Pavee Point, says most of the Roma have no income from the State because they have no idea how to claim their entitlements. Over the past five years she has written countless grant applications to Government departments, the EU, private foundations, and so on, in her failed attempts to get funding to help the Roma integrate into Irish society.

The money she received from Fás for the current English course, which has a waiting list of 60 people, is the first money in four years the Roma as a group have received.

"I think the Government was hoping we would leave," says George Danceia, a Roma who works as a chef and who is a volunteer assistant co-ordinator at Pavee Point. "There are many Roma who have managed to get jobs, but because they don't fit the stereotype they aren't seen."

An estimated 98 per cent of Roma in the State come from Romania, but Roma also come from other parts of Europe. There are an estimated 10-12 million Roma worldwide, and the majority live Europe.

While traditionally they were nomadic, today they are a more settled people, and regard the term "gypsy" as pejorative.

Many lack birth certificates and have no access to education or work. They are often despised, particularly in eastern Europe, where they have been victimised by skinhead gangs. Their reception in Ireland has been warm in comparison.

Once a week, the Roma community here gathers to remember the 500,000 Roma exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Their history of persecution, forced assimilation and enslavement goes back 1,000 years. Of all the ethnic groups that have flocked to the State since the late 1990s, the 3,000 Roma are the poorest and least well-equipped to integrate. "They are the most marginalised," says Fay.

For many, the €92 per week they get on the course is the most public money they've received in this country. Without English or a knowledge of the social welfare system, most don't know how to claim their entitlements.

Only one-third of Roma children go to school, partly because many schools with waiting lists haven't been able to give them places. But even if Roma children do get a place, many attend as little as four days a month.

Parents who are learning English at Pavee Point say that their motivation is to show their children that education is a good thing, since many Roma fear it. In Romania, many Roma children are put in schools for children with mental disabilities.

Danceia is adamant that the Roma currently in the State are determined to become part of mainstream society, a right that they've been denied all over Europe due to prejudice.

"Education with us is number one," he says. "Give us a chance: we are not looking for charity."