Tuzla, 24.08.2021.- Association of Roma Women “Better Future” Tuzla has started implementing a project entitled “Improving cooperation and exchange of information with local media in the City of Tuzla”, with the aim of increasing the visibility of various activities of this association and access to information on available services support for Roma women in the local community.

The project is focused on improving communication between the NGO sector, primarily the Association “Better Future” with the media at the local level, in order to reduce hate speech and spread intolerance towards Roma in the Tuzla region, and to train representatives of the Roma community on media literacy, and better understand media content, develop critical thinking. From this Association they say that only through positive and proactive cooperation with local media it is possible to work on reducing unprofessional, stereotypical and discriminatory media coverage of Roma.

So far, the project has held several information meetings with representatives of the media community to discuss ways to report on the Roma population.

Indira Bajramović, president of the Association “Better Future” Tuzla, says that this organization has good cooperation with the media in Tuzla, but that there are media that do not always convey in an appropriate way what this association is trying to place. “When we talk about some positive things and stories, successful Roma women, young people are presented with a distorted picture where the story of the Roma community is covered with pictures of a garbage dump, a muddy road, children whose faces are not even darkened. We want to draw the attention of these media, especially to the hate speech that is present in the comments below the portal, and to show as many positive examples from the Roma community as possible”, Bajramović points out.

In the following period, several more meetings with the media are planned, informing the Roma community, making and broadcasting a promotional video, as well as conducting a media campaign.

The project “Improving cooperation and exchange of information with local media in the City of Tuzla” implemented by the Association of Roma Women “Better Future” Tuzla is part of the “Small Grants Program” within the project “Free Media for Free Society”, implemented by the BH Journalists Association in cooperation with the Association of Electronic Media in BiH, with the support of the European Union.