Romani baht Foundation

PROFILE OF THE ROMANI BAHT FOUNDATION, BULGARIA
      The Romani baht Foundation is a Roma Human Rights Advocacy Organization. It was founded in 1995 and legally registered in May 1996 in the Sofia City Court. At the beginning, the organization provided services for the Roma community in Fakulteta district in Sofia. In 2001 the activities were extended in the other Roma neighborhoods in Sofia – Philipovtzi and Christo Botev. The organization has also established Information and Communication Center. The Center is responsible for gathering all the information from the three field offices and also is issuing a Newsletter, which contains information about Romani Baht activities and publishes interesting legal cases. In most of the cases the state institutions also prefer to work with the foundation as partners, because this model of solving the problems has been proven as a successful one.
Basic goals of the organization are as follows:
      1. Mediation between the Roma community and state and local authorities;
      2. Creation of partnership and tolerance between Roma community and Bulgarian civic organizations;
      3. Creation of equal status of Roma community in its dialogue with the institutions, civic organizations and media and lobby for equal access of Roma in all spheres of Bulgarian society as it is anticipated with the Framework Program for Equal Participation of Roma in the Bulgarian Public Life (signed by the Bulgarian Government in April 1999);
      4. Providing of legal education for Roma youth;
      5. Providing of legal aid and legal representation in cases of human rights abuses and discrimination on ethnic base and prevention of inhuman and degrading treatment of Roma.

Structure
The Human Rights Monitoring, Advocacy and Legal Department
The Education Department
The Administrative Department

REPORT OF THE ROMANI BAHT’S ACTIVITIES FOR THE PERIOD 2001 - 2002.
Basic activities for the respective period:
      1. Godi e Romenge project. This is a program for securing free legal assistance and administrative help for the Roma community in Sofia...» more