1. Case-study No. & Title:
205. Improving the living conditions and providing drinking water to a Roma District in Ludus, Romania

Keywords

2. Author information:
2.1 Author's Name
Emese Bálint

2.2 Institutional Affiliation and Contact Details:
Universitatea Babes-Bolyai, Str. Horea 31.
RO-3400, Cluj-Napoca
Romania

Tel./fax: +40 64 342 317
E-mail: balintmse@hotmail.com

2.3 Date recorded
20/10/2000

3. Good Practice Information Sheet
3.1 Local Level Good Practice:
The project aims to improve the living conditions of the Roma families living in the Marasesti district of Ludus by supplying clean drinking water.

3.2 Location:
Ludus, Mures county, Romania

3.3 Minority/Target Groups:
Minority: Roma. Target group: families living in the Marasesti ditrict, on the periphery of Ludus, Romania.

3.4 Major Actors Involved

3.5 Budget allocated by local government authorities and/or by other actors
Approximately 10 million ROL (unofficial estimation) for the water tap, allocated by the local government in Ludus; and 4500 USD starting budget for the "Romano-Tolah" Association, allocated by the Roma Participation Program (RPP), Budapest.

3.6 Timeframe
The initiative was first put into practice in 1996, and then started for a second time in the spring of 2000. The project is ongoing, and it is anticipated that a second and eventually a third tap will be installed in the street. This is highly dependent upon the collaboration between the local authorities and the representative association.

3.7 Local level good practice relation to national level ethnic policy
The project was initiated by the local NGO, which acts as a representative and mediator between the local authorities and the Roma population in Ludus. The mayor and the "Romano-Tolah" Association has signed a cooperation agreement, which is sporadically observed by the authorities. At the time of writing the "Romano-Tolah" Association had requested financial support for the Roma families, but more than a year had passed without the issue being resolved. The present project, namely supplying a Roma district with drinking water, was part of the electoral campaign of the previous mayor. After the election of the new mayor the cooperation agreement was not renewed. Anti-Roma public sentiment is strong in Ludus.

4 . Good Practice Description
The organisations participating in this project include the local authorities, the NGO "Romano-Tolah" Association, and the Information Centre for Roma in Ludus area.

The town of Ludus was formerly very industrial but the rate of unemployment is now about 92%. At the beginning of the 1990s there were 7000 employed people in the town, and at the time of writing their number has dropped to 950. Given these facts, the local council has declared the town a special, disadvantaged area.

According to an unofficial report from 1996, the number of Roma with a right to vote in Mures county was 45,000. Seven hundred Roma families live in Ludus, and the average family comprises 8 persons. . About 80 families out of the 700 live in the district called Marasesti, which is situated at the margin of the town, along the Mures river The district basically consists of one long street between the river and a hill. Their housing conditions are very poor, and they do not own the land their houses are built on. Most families live in wattle houses, and every flood threatens to wash the houses away. With the river threatening from one side, they live in constant fear of being carried away by the landslides from the other side. The street they live in is not paved, and until recently it had no public lighting. As part of a project, electricity was introduced with the help of local government and the local branch of the power distribution company.

Another administrative problem is the ownership of the land. Although they have been living there for decades, people do not own the land their houses are built on. In fact many of the inhabitants do not have identity cards, and therefore cannot be registered as inhabitants. And as a consequence, they are not eligible for any social allowance, and are exposed to abuse by the authorities. Being unemployed, most of the families live on their children's monthly allowance as pupils. Except for five houses, the district has no gas, and the families use illegal methods to collect wood in the forest. When caught, they may be convicted and imprisoned. Due to their high levels of debt, many families were cut off from the electricity network. On occasion this has prompted further use of illegal methods, with some individuals connecting their houses to the network by means of improvised devices.

The majority of other Roma families in Ludus live in similar conditions. Many live in a tower-block which is commonly called the "Roma house". The general poverty is to be found here as well, they have huge debts, therefore electricity, hot running water and central heating have been stopped for the last six or seven years. With the intervention of the "Romano-Tolah" Association, all these socially disadvantaged Roma families applied for social allowance from the local authorities, but their requests have not been resolved for over a year.

The "Romano-Tolah" Association
The above-mentioned NGO, the "Romano-Tolah" Association was founded by the victims' families in 1993, and named after the Roma pogrom in Hadareni, Romania. The association works with Roma communities in Ludus, Deda, Valea-Larga, Hadareni, and co-operates with the local governments as a mediator of Roma problems in relation to the authorities. As the public institutions are not easily accessible to citizens (especially in small towns and villages), the NGOs have considerable importance in relation to projects that aim to improve interaction between the officials and population.

Financed by the Resource Center for Roma Communities (RCRC), Cluj and by the Roma Participation Program (RPP), Budapest, the "Romano-Tolah" Association opened an Information Center for Roma in Ludus area, and this center works to identify problems among the Roma population, and to find solutions to them with the collaboration of the local authorities. Although the authorities responded with distrust, the Association eventually succeeded in securing their agreement to a collaboration protocol aimed at reconnecting the Marasesti district to the town’s mains water supply.

Prior to the Association’s initiative, the district had been connected to the mains water supply in 1996, as a part of the election campaign. It has already been mentioned that the Marasesti district consists of one street, and the only public tap was installed at the entrance to the district. Knowing that the disadvantaged families cannot pay for the water consumption, the town hall agreed to meet the cost. After a year, however, they stopped this action, and the costs should have been paid by the consumers. Failing to pay, and accumulating huge debts, the water supply company disconnected the tap from the network. The inhabitants of the district were then restricted to using water taken from the polluted Mures river.

After three years, in spring 2000, the town council accepted the proposal by the "Romano-Tolah" Association, to reconnect the Roma district to the drinking water network. It was part of the electoral campaign of the previous mayor, running for candidacy again. Although the new mayor has not signed the co-operation agreement after the local election, the project continues, and the town hall allocates funds from the budget for the water consumption.

Put in practice for the second time, the project is expected to be continued by constructing a second and eventually a third tap in the street. This is strongly dependent upon the successful collaboration between the local authorities and the representative association. The Roma representative in the town council promised a fair consideration of the problems, and a systematic plan for developing the Roma district as well.

Results of the project and reactions to it
The public water tap in the Marasesti district has provided people with healthy water supply, but in some cases people continued to use water taken from the river. Their main argument is that the tap is too far away from their houses, carrying water in buckets is very tiring and time-consuming. They may have stopped drinking and cooking with water from the river, but they use it for other purposes, like washing and cleaning. The solution would be to install at least one more public tap in the street. The local council, however, considers that their role in the project has ended, and people have to solve the problem themselves.

Financial support for the project
When installed for the first time, the public tap in Marasesti was financially supported by the town budget. After a year, when the town hall stopped paying for the water consumption, the "Romano-Tolah" Association intervened, but without any success. The mayor advised the association to pay for the Roma families of the district, but it was an impossible condition as the association has no funds for such purposes. In the spring of 2000 the tap was reconnected to the network at the town’s expense.

Attitude of the Roma in the district
Despite having achieved a step forward in the cooperation with the authorities, the Roma population in Marasesti district, and in Ludus area in general, remains skeptical. They are aware of the fact that the tap was reinstalled during the electoral campaign in the town, and they feel like a temporary target group for voting purposes. After the election, they say, officials simply forget about their promises, and fail to facilitate living conditions for disadvantaged families.

They also have to deal with the general anti-Roma sentiment of the town’s citizens, and the constant threats to their security causes them to display a defensive attitude. Allusions to the Roma pogrom in Hadareni are made by both sides: as a threat on the part of the majority ("We will burn your houses like they did in Hadareni!"), and as a reminder of injustice on the part of the Roma. These tensions do not make the integration of Roma into the larger community any easier.

Involvement of the district into further projects
I have already mentioned the ambiguous attitude of the district’s population towards the project, especially of those who live further from the tap. In an ad hoc gathering of the people in Marasesti district however, they showed their willingness to launch a new project for developing the gas and water network in the street. They all agreed that the situation would be easier if they had at least two more public taps along the street. Most of the men volunteered for active participation in the digging, and the "Romano-Tolah" Association will apply for financial support from the Resource Center for Roma Communities (RCRC), Cluj. They will also negotiate with the water and gas supplying companies for work and extension authorizations.

Problems which appeared during the project
In the present situation the greatest problem represented the involvement of the authorities. Without a long tradition of collaboration between the NGOs and local authorities, both sides are uncertain about how to handle certain situations. The development of a community requires the skills of specially trained individuals, and local councils in most cases neither ask for professional opinion, nor consider real needs.