The Rroma Foundation (Rromani Fundacija) was founded in November 1993, in Zurich, Switzerland. The foundation was created at a moment when the countries of Europe were getting closer, heralding the extension of the European community, while at the same time nationalistic and racist movements were on the rise former communist countries. Since the arrival of the Rroma in Europe in the 11th century, the societies in which they settled ignored their culture and traditions. Today, the non-Rroma still do not fully understand the Rroma way of life, and as a result mistrust and discrimination of Rroma greatly contributes to their sub-standard of living.
The grant-making activities of the Rroma Foundation are focused on initiatives that are created and implemented by Rroma, for Rroma. The main objective is to encourage Rroma to develop projects in various fields (i.e. education, culture, community development, human rights), in order to improve the circumstances in which they currently live, and to build bridges of greater understanding between the Rroma and the non-Rroma communities.
The Rroma Foundation program contains a set of general guide-lines under which projects are considered for funding and whose crux and ideas are contained in the policy paper presented earlier. The foundation is open to any Rroma initiative falling within this set of guidelines and which are organised by Rroma themselves.
In addition
to receiving proposals for consideration, the Rroma Foundation also collaborates
on projects with local Foundations throughout Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union. Members of the board of the Rroma Foundation, the Executive
Director and Program Directors have conducted surveys in several countries to
identify Rroma organisations, individuals and programs with which the Rroma
Foundation can collaborate in order to develop and support initiatives.