My name is Seo Cizmic, I am Roma and born in Italy. I am the son of immigrants from ex-Yugoslavia who came to Italy in the seventies. I have an education as a swimming teacher, an intercultural mediator, and studied art at college in Genova. This allowed me to develop my work as a swimming teacher, mediator in schools as well as artistic theater projects on local and national level.
FAGIC is a network of Roma organizations and I did my voluntary service in one of them. Nakeramos is one of the most active organizations on local, national and international levels. Therefore, I could transmit my volunteering experience to many young Roma. I could also get to know the different organizations in which Nakeramos participates. Barcelona offers many tools for dialogue with the administration in which Roma get a voice by taking part as organizations or individuals. Nakeramos has projects to support children between six and fourteen at school, to support courses of literacy and obtaining a driving license for adults, as well as flamenco music projects. The most important field of activity on the grassroots level is the youth work, which creates spaces for, and a network of, young Roma and non-Roma from all over Spain.
The voluntary service experience gave me the opportunity to explore other realities and the diversity of Roma. I got to know the work other Roma organizations develop on the grassroots level within communities, as well as the bodies that have developed to directly communicate with government administrations. This experience al-lows me to apply new tools in my home town, which help me to improve the social and cultural cohesion of our Roma community. Phiren Amenca works at the European level, which gives youth the possibility to get to know different realities and cultures of our ethnicity. The voluntary service allows you to demystify the stereotypes associated with yourself as well as with other people with who you interact with during your service. The voluntary service experience allowed me to get to know different platforms of activists and to continue my participation in them. Currently, I am engaged in initiatives at the local, national, and European levels on the creation of artistic tools which contribute to spread the knowledge of the Roma genocide, a sad and unknown chapter of our history.