Boryana Chimbuleva works for the Inter Ethnic Forum, which helps people from ethnic minorities within the Mid & East Antrim Borough Council area to integrate and promote their cultures in the local community.
For seven years now, Boryana has worked predominantly with the Bulgarian Roma community. She explains,
‘This community arrived in Ballymena around 2016 and is quite large now. The people are very vulnerable due to a lack of education in their own country, no knowledge of English and lack of skills. They are pushed to look for jobs here because they cannot find work in their own country. Most of the time they do not know their own rights. They've been exploited very often at different levels, such as in housing and work.’
Minka Kirilova shares her story,
‘I’ve lived in Northern Ireland for seven years now. I really like living here, it's a lovely place. I work and my children are attending schools here in Ballymena.
I want to share a few words about us, the Roma. We are very joyful people. We like music and we like dancing. We are very family-orientated and we work a lot.
A few months ago, after midnight, my house was attacked with a hammer by a man I don't know. He broke the window of the room where my son was sleeping. Shortly before the attack there was a group of men outside making a lot of noise, screaming and shouting. We could hear bad words. We felt very, very scared. We were very afraid and really, really worried about what was going to happen. The next morning I found out that another four or five houses on the street where I live had also been attacked and had their windows broken. All of these were the homes of Bulgarian Roma. After a second attack I felt hate and felt it was a racist attack. At that moment I was so scared that I decided to take my children to Bulgaria for two months because I did not feel safe at all.
We are not here to make any trouble. The only thing the Roma people want is to have the opportunity to work, for our children to be educated and to live in a nice environment. We want to have a chance for our children and a better future.
I would like to see more support organisations to help us, so we can be more welcome, relaxed and united here.
I think if more people hear our stories and our traditions, they will understand us and maybe they will accept us. I really hope so.’
Anka Bordei works for the Inter Ethnic Forum, supporting the Romanian Roma community. She explains,
‘The Roma community is one of the most vulnerable communities because of their lack of education as well as the systematic discrimination they have been through for generations.
I can think of a story of a 36 year old Roma lady here in Ballymena, a young mother of three who was unable to access the correct medical treatment. Every time she would try to ring her GP to explain in her very limited English what the symptoms were, the GP would advise her to drink water. She was getting worse and worse. A couple of weeks passed and the same advice was given. So, eventually she accessed the services of a private doctor in Dublin, who just happened to be Romanian. As soon as was seen, that doctor sent her straight to urgent medical care. A cancer was discovered bit it was so late that in less than a year she passed away and left three children motherless.
Maybe, if she had been able to explain her symptoms in a better way, maybe if she had more education, maybe if she had a bit of literacy, she would have been able to explain correctly and the doctor would have understood what was going on. This is just one example of how the lack of education, the lack of literacy and the lack of English skills can affect a Roma family. I think we need the right interventions put in place in order for these cases not to be repeated.
As I come from Romania, I know how discriminated Roma people are there. I think it's very important to educate staff in all areas, such as education and health services, about why the Roma community is so vulnerable and why it was so hard for them to integrate in Romania, because they have been discriminated against at every level. I've noticed quite a lot that when a Roma person, who doesn't have education, can't get the services they need, they get frustrated and raise their voice. If the staff knew their history and understood why Roma people react in this way, then instead of thinking they need to protect themselves, they would embrace the situation and try to help.’
Ginka Petrova shares her story,
‘I’ve lived in Northern Ireland for nearly five years. I would like to share the story of what my family has suffered here.
One day, when my husband and son went to work early in the morning, they were beaten very, very badly. The reason my family was attacked is because we are Roma. This caused us lots of stress and anxiety. We were afraid to go out, to go to the shops. We don't want to feel afraid. We just want to go to work and to live a normal life.
Two weeks ago, we found out that our child is partially deaf and he still cannot talk. He was left behind for five years. The GP didn't notice, the teachers didn't notice. He is responding like a child of P1 or P2 and next year he will be in P7.’
Boryana explains,
‘It will probably cost more now because the child needs additional assistant teachers, additional help and interpreters involved. Cases like this are sad and raise concerns because I'm sure there are other cases where children are being robbed of their proper development.’