IHRA-funded project adopted by Italian Ministry of Education

Earlier this year, the Center for Research on Intercultural Relations at the Sacred Heart Catholic University in Italy, in cooperation with the USC Shoah Foundation in America, produced an online bilingual educational resource, “Giving Memory a Future,” with support from IHRA.

The IHRA funded project will be presented in parliament on 27 January. The website www.romsintimemory provides information on Sinti and Roma culture and history and is aimed at political decision-makers and the educational field, addressing the need to develop new strategies to combat the discrimination of Sinti and Roma today.

Available in Italian and English,the website includes documentation of historical and contemporary culture, the genocide of the Sinti and Roma, contemporary discrimination, and how it can be countered with good practices of social inclusion. The site provides video testimonies, historical documents, photographs and other primary sources, as well as articles written by experts on the history of Roma and Sinti, studies conducted by non-governmental organizations on contemporary discrimination and other secondary sources. In total it contains 172 images, 90 textual documents and one audio file in addition to the 49 video testimony clips.

The project also aims to raise awareness among various target groups including educational policy and political decision-makers. This aim has recently been realised, with the Italian Ministry of Education deciding to use the site to talk about the Porrajmos. The Ministry will link the site to be read in Italian schools. This is part of the broader "National Strategy for the Inclusion of Roma, Sinti and Caminanti Communities", which specifically refers to remembrance of the Porrajmos, and is the Government’s response to the 2011 EU communication, "An EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020".

For more information about “Giving Memory a Future”, please visit their website.