Roma Policy Lab

Publications and analyses

Bridging the gap between Roma youth and business – unlocking the hidden potential for the labor market

The notion that Roma do not work has long been disproved by the trends in the labor market in Bulgaria. The data for this is there: between 2011 and 2019, the share of working Roma has doubled. This is shown by a nationally representative study from 2019 ocommissioned by the Trust for a Social Achievement, dedicated to educational achievements in the Roma community.

How It Started, How It is Going: Media Literacy Index 2022

The Media Literacy Index is produced within the European Policies Initiative (EuPI) of the Open Society Institute – Sofia. The index assesses the resilience potential to fake news in 41 European countries, using indicators for media freedom, education and trust in people. As the indicators have different importance, they are assigned different weight in the model.

Publication: Roma in Bulgaria

Anyone who has tried to research, write or think about the situation of the Roma in Bulgaria has come across an increasing amount of information, which is often fragmented and contradictory. How many and...

PAPER: Key findings from the discussions on “Building and sustaining trust in vaccines and vaccination in Roma communities”

Despite the large amount of ideas presented for possible actions to increase vaccination against Covid-19, the overall model for action that emerged from the aggregate suggestions of the participants cannot solve the vaccination problem, but it does provide guidance: 1) which are the problem areas; 2) for which activities there is no appropriate initiator and therefore, although theoretically necessary, they cannot be implemented or it is currently unknown how they can be initiated; 3) for which activities recommendations have been made to specific actors, but they have shown no willingness or initiative to implement them and it is currently unknown who can prompt them to do so.

New Open-access Book: Precarious Housing in Europe – A Critical Guide

The textbook Precarious Housing in Europe – A critical guide on cross-cutting issues around precarious housing in the Old Continent is now printed and available online to provide a profound and solid synthesis and analysis of the critical elements of housing precariousness. Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 – “Informal settlements” and “Homelessness” – were drafted by the research team of the Open Society Institute – Sofia and present the scope, causes and dynamics of homelessness and illegally built housing and settlements such as migrant camps, neighbourhoods with a high concentration of poverty and often ethnically segregated and marginalized urban areas.

10 Keys to effectively communicating human rights  

The “10 Keys” is a very handy practical communication manual on how to create consistent and engaging human rights messages. The manual is available in all EU languages plus in Albanian, Macedonian, Serbian, Turkish, and Russian.

Practical Guide on Admissibility Criteria

Bulgaria is in 14th place in terms of the number of pending appeals allocated to a judicial panel with 623 appeals and in 17th place in terms of the number of pending appeals allocated per capita. The translation of the publication in Bulgarian language (see the Bulgarian version of our site) was made possible with the financial support of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014–2021, Justice programme.

Building Future For All: Urban Planning in Roma Settlements

Illegal and informal housing is a problem in Bulgaria. Demolishing Roma neighborhoods does not solve the problem. This Handbook presents a model that works as a viable alternative to evictions and demolition. Through urban planning, municipalities can endorse or amend zoning plans to allow families to formalize built houses and buy the plots of land where they live. As a result, municipalities will achieve greater stability, security, and economic opportunity for all.