Feature on poverty of Romany community in Serbia

Описание: (18 Jun 2007) SHOTLIST

+++SOUND QUALITY AS INCOMING+++

1. Pan showing the Romany community cardboard settlement with the modern buildings of Belgrade in background
2. The Romany communities houses made of cardboard, tin, carpets and tyres
3. A truck parked in the mud in front of the Romany settlement
4. Child sitting in a pushchair
5. Various of man pilling up cardboard
6. Zoom out of local children
7. Stereo connected to a car battery AUDIO music
8. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Biljana Tulipovic, Romany:
"We do not have milk, meat or salami. Sometimes our children want yoghurt, but we do not have enough money to buy it. We live by collecting paper (to be recycled), cardboard or tin, old refrigerators and we sell them to survive."
9. Tulipovic's children sitting inside one of the cardboard settlements
10. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Biljana Tulipovic, Romany:
"I tried cleaning buildings and flats to make some money. I would like to find a job, because of my kids."
11. Child sitting on the floor playing with a puppy
12. Girl laying on a bed
13. Various of Tulipovic rinsing dishes outside with dirty water
14. Wide of settlement
15. Setup of Doctor Oliver Petrovic from UNICEF (The United Nations Children's Fund)
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Doctor Oliver Petrovic, UNICEF
"We have some particularly poorest families who cannot afford even minimum number of daily meals for children. Minimum meaning at the age of six to nine (months) minimum two (meals) plus breast feeding or later on minimum three (meals) plus breast feeding so they can't even afford that minimum. Plus when you have in mind that those kids are exposed to a number of episodes of diarrhoea and some other illnesses that leads to chronic malnutrition."
17. UNICEF logo


STORYLINE

Surrounding the modern buildings of downtown Belgrade is the Staro Sajmiste settlement - which to the untrained eye could be mistaken for a rubbish dump but in actual fact it is home to the majority of the Romany community.

The conditions are bleak, houses are made out of cupboards, offering little protection from the harsh realities of a Serbian winter.

The numbers living in the settlement swelled in 1999 when the crisis in Kosovo displaced 90-thousand Romas and forced the majority to take refugee in the industrial slums of Belgrade.

There is virtually no electricity or clean water for drinking and there is no infrastructure to deal with the sewage from the settlement.

Among those living in the so-called "cardboard slums" is Biljana Tulipovic and her six children aged between two and 13.

"We do not have milk, meat or salami. Sometimes our children want yoghurt, but, we do not have enough money to buy it. We live by collecting paper (to be recycled), cardboard or tin, old refrigerators and we sell them to survive," she said on Thursday (14 June).

The Romany community are the sole residents of these make-shift enclaves, often perched alongside a fancy hotel or first-class residential complexes.

But for the majority they have little choice, as employment is hard to come by, and employers are reluctant to give work to Romas.

Belgraders mostly turn away from these settlements, regarding them as "tumours" in the body of their fair city.

The settlements are also often targeted by right-wing extremists, who come in the middle of the night to attack their beleaguered residents.

The position of the Belgrade Romas has come into focus recently as Serbia strives to reconnect with mainstream Europe following years of wars and international isolation.












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