Where are the most Roma-friendly towns in the Western Balkans?

On my travel I see children playing on waste dumps and others preparing school. I discover rundown shacks and modern social housings. I meet hardworking Roma and those without a job.

I listen to those speaking about discrimination in everyday life and to those living in harmony with other citizens.

It’s a mixed picture, but let’s start with Ramiz Šakoli, a resident of a Roma neighbourhood in the outskirts of Nikšić in Montenegro: “We go to the city centre and people point at us, saying: There are the gypsies. We enter a coffee shop, they say again: There are the gypsies. Relations are not good,” he says.  

However, in some cities change is on the way. The European Commission gave seven mayors from the Western Balkans awards for their Roma-friendly initiatives. In Montenegro, the winner is Marko Kovačević. He is the mayor of Nikšić, the second biggest city in the country: some 70.000 people, among them an estimated 1500 Roma.

Kovačević promoted the construction of 31 social housing units, 17 were given to Roma-families. When he planned to expand the project, there was resistance: “Change is happening too slowly. The reason is the different lifestyle of the Roma community and the rest of our community in Nikšić. Recently, we wanted to build 10 social housing units in one neighbourhood where we had resistance of the rest of the population against the project,” he says.

 I visit the “Centrum for Roma Initiatives”. Among other projects, the NGO promotes rights of Roma women. Health, school, work, housing – it’s all linked, says director Fana Delija. An important first step would be to clarify property issues, a problem existing in all regions of former Yugoslavia. “The biggest problem is the (still missing) legalisation of the