The Finnish Roma Association acts as partner in Deaconess Foundation’s four-year (2021-2024) development cooperation project in Ukraine. The local implementor is a Roma women’s organisation Chiricli and its local partners. The objects and actions of the project had to be changed right after the project was launched as Russia attacked Ukraine in March 2021.

In the beginning of the war the employees of Chiricli were forced to evacuate Kiov. However, some of them returned to their office after Russia had withdrawn from the Northern Ukraine. The core activities of the organisation is to defend the human rights which has although risen in importance since beginning of the war also become all the more challenging, as minorities are easily forgotten when the war is raging. For example, since the beginning of the war the fact that thousands of Ukrainian Roma still do not have identity papers does not interest much anyone, nor does it breach the news level. The crimes against humanity committed during war most often fall heaviest upon those who were already in a vulnerable status prior to the war. Anti-gypsyism flourishes during the war even within the charity organisations and in how the aid is distributed. Most often it materialises in a silent and passive ignorance or looking the other way.  The members of the European Union must work together to promote equality and monitor the distribution of the aid. After all, equality does not happen if it is not being monitored and given the effort it needs to flourish.

The Finnish Roma Association’s role in the project is to educated the Ukrainian partner organisation Chiricili’s employees. In a recent workshop have covered themes such as how to arrange their communications with the local authorities as well as funders. In another workshop the theme was “Rome in the war”, where the Finnish Roma Association shared the experiences and fates that fell upon the Finnish Roma people in the course of the Winter and Continuation war and in the immediate aftermath of these war and during the early ear of rebuilding.

It is stated in the goals and principles of Finland’s development policy that Finland aims to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and achieve suitable development globally. Civil society organisations may participate in the implementation of the development policy via development cooperation projects. According to the Finland’s development Annual report on Evaluation civil society organisations’ grassroot work is vital as these organisations reach people who are in vulnerable status, people whose rights are not necessarily being acknowledged and to whom supporting via any other means might be difficult.