Sofia, September 30, 2021
The official presentation of the results analysis of the research realized among Roma communities on topics, connected with migration took place on September 30, 2021 in Sofia in person 
and online. The initiative is a part of the project "Raising the awareness of local communities in areas with significant presence of Roma population on asylum and migration issues", funded under the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 through the program of the Ministry of Interior with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as a predefined partner. The Bulgarian Family Planning and Sexual Health Association (BFPA) together with the National Network of Health Mediators (NNHM) and the Minority Health Problems Foundation (EMHPF) is a part of the NNHM-BFPA-EMHPF Consortium, which in April this year started working on the project.
The field research, implemented with the key role of health mediators, covered nearly 400 people and was conducted in the period May 30 - June 30, 2021 in the towns Breznik, Provadia, Trun and Harmanli and in Filipovtsi neighbourhood of Sofia.
A large percentage of respondents are motivated to work abroad ‘to make good money’, and for many of them ‘good money’ means ‘to be able to support my family’. It is interesting that some of them answered as well ‘to be able to save money’, which is not responding to the traditional perception that Roma people are living only here and now and don’t plan their future. From the analysis it becomes clear that most people covered by the research, don’t know exactly what means ‘sure working opportunity’, for part of them this might mean ‘My cousin told me that I will have work’. The part of those hoping to find job in the foreign country when in place is worrying because of the danger to fall into the nets of illegal human trafficking.
Along with the desire for better incomes, the research identifies as one of the priorities in the motivation of Roma leaving the country the wish to better educate their children. One of the conclusions is that there is a need for additional clarification, as in the minds of many respondents ‘legal work’ means just the opposite of ‘illegal’, ‘secured work’ is ‘working contract work’, and they don’t differentiate the phenomena of ‘human trafficking’ and ‘smuggling’.
Detailed and very timely, the research raises a wide variety of questions. One of the main conclusions, that confirms previous findings of BFPA, is that the Roma in Bulgaria are not homogenous, have a lot of specifics and generalizing and common approaches are not recommendable. .
Analysts see a serious problem in the fact that the question ‘Did you ask for help from a Bulgarian institution?’ very few answered affirmatively. As a whole this indicates the distrust towards Bulgarian institutions, as at the same time a significant percentage of respondents answer that if they need assistance abroad, even if they don’t know the language of the country in which they live, they ask for help from local social services. There is a need to work with Bulgarian institutions in order to understand the need of active actions to increase the trust in them.
As a part of the event the website of the project was presented: https://romamigration.bg/
Next relevant step of the work of the NNHM-BFPA-EMHPF Consortium is to elaborate a Communication strategy for the upcoming campaign and on this basis to plan trainings, special events and materials development under the project.
