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*The First Romani Mayor* by Daniel Ganga and Petru Zoltan<http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article_single.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=225&NrSection=3&NrArticle=18818&ST1=ad&ST_T1=job&ST_AS1=1&ST2=body&ST_T2=letter&ST_AS2=1&ST3=text&ST_T3=aatol&ST_AS3=1&ST_max=3#author> 4 July 2007 *A small town near Bucharest makes history as it elects the country's first Rom to do a hugely difficult job.* BARBULESTI, Romania | The only paved road in Barbulesti, a town of about 6,000 some 50 kilometers north of Bucharest, cuts the mostly Romani village in two. Alongside it sits the pink town hall. Nearby, shoddy houses sit behind tumbledown fences. Beside the houses is a cluster of 59 temporary homes, each about the size of a railway carriage. Installed by the Romanian government after the floods in the fall of 2005, the homes have no sewer and water facilities. Water comes from a single well, and there is one crude toilet, with a piece of hanging cloth for a door, to serve every 10 of the temporary shelters. "When the wind blows a bit harder, the tin on our roofs flies off," said Dumitru Dragnea, the community's unofficial spokesman. "We run after it at night to put it back on the next day. … We are 400 souls drinking from one well." This forlorn place made a bit of history last year. In a country of 21 million, of whom an estimated 2 million are Roma, it elected Romania's first Romani mayor. Ion Cutitaru has set goals for Barbulesti that might seem modest anywhere else – ensuring its residents receive the proper state benefits, as well as building a police station and post office – but here they are lofty. PLANS AND AMBITIONS One of Cutitaru's first actions in office was to get Barbulesti's residents the social aid they are entitled to legally. Early this year, the town hall had some 700 applications pending for the minimum social aid, up from 580 before Cutitaru's election. "I want to fully ensure social aid for my people throughout my term. A kid can go to school if he has a bit of bread to eat," said Cutitaru, who at 55 stands about 168 centimeters tall and sports a gray pate. He recently welcomed visitors into his paper-filled office, where there are Romanian, European Union, and international blue-and-green Roma flags on his desk. Clearly tired after a long day of work, Cutitaru spoke calmly of his ambitious plans. He wants to build a police station, a clinic, a veterinary clinic, a post office, and a cultural center for the Roma. "Now, we have nothing," he said. Cutitaru also plans to pave the village's roads and to dam the nearby Ialomita river, which flooded the village in 2005 and destroyed more than 200 houses, leaving 300 people to take shelter in the village school. "Very shortly, the village will get back to normal," Cutitaru said. "We'll receive funds from the county government. There are European funds for the Roma. As far as I understand, there will be 10 to 12 million euros for the Roma." Nine months after his election, the mayor is still waiting for the county government, which disburses most public money, to pump cash into his village. Meanwhile, he said, his emphasis on getting aid for people has improved the town's tax collection rate, although he would not say by how much. "You first give something to somebody and then you ask them for something," he said. "So we first offer people the minimum aid, guaranteed by the law, and then they pay their taxes to the state. We try through our local councilors to explain to people that they have rights and obligations." But one critic says the taxes-for-aid approach is misguided. "I don't really agree with people relying only on social aid. As long as they rely on 40 or 50 euros a month, that's a problem," said Leonida Mandache, president of the Ialomita County branch of the Roma Party Pro Europe. He said that in a typical family of seven or eight people receiving about 100 euros a month in benefits, at least three are people able to work for a proper salary and therefore to lead a normal life. JOBS, JOBS, JOBS Most agree that jobs are key for further development, but securing them is another issue. It is difficult to know what Barbulesti's real unemployment rate is, as most of the villagers have never worked legally and are therefore not entitled to the unemployment benefits received by someone who, for instance, worked legally in a company that went bust. Many leave temporarily to find work, or to beg, elsewhere. In 2005 and 2006, the country's national employment agency experimented with a job exchange for Roma, funded jointly by the European Union and Romanian government. It was a failure, according to a source at the agency who asked not to be named. "The employment conditions were too tough," he said. "The lack of interest from employers and social actors, [such as schools, hospitals, and NGOs] combined with the lack of information about the exchange among Roma contributed to its failure." The source said potential employers imposed absurd conditions. For example, a street-cleaning company required 10 years of education. Another company, the same source said, asked Roma applying for a window washer job to speak English. "The jobs exchange was bollocks," Mandache said. "We want to work, but we have no jobs," Dragnea, 55, added. "To work as guards, companies ask us for at least eight years of education. We live from the [aid to] children and social aid. We have nothing else. Out of 400 people, only two or three work [in the village]. If we all had an education, it would be a different situation." Until 2 years of age, a poor child can receive state aid of 65 euros per month. After that, the figure is cut to 12 euros per month. Even farming is not much of an option. Agriculture was practiced cooperatively under communism, but it declined after land reform gave people back their land without the money or resources to farm it. Long neglected now, the land has only become more difficult to work. "Agriculture hasn't been lucrative lately," Cutitaru said. "It's hard here in Barbulesti to work the land. We have no equipment, and the fields don't cooperate." The village has some 100 hectares of agricultural land. Today, many of Barbulesti's Roma work as itinerate traders, mostly in textiles and clothing. "If you go to some fairs in the country … you'll find Roma from our village," Cutitaru said. The national employment agency's Ialomita County branch plans to hire 150 Roma for three months later this summer to work for the community. They will receive a minimum salary from the agency, Mandache said. But that is just a drop in the ocean. Cutitaru has promised to lobby the companies that will do modernization works in the village to hire Roma. CLIMBING THE LADDER Cutitaru was elected mayor in October 2006, three months after Barbulesti gained autonomy from a neighboring village and, therefore, the right to choose its own leader. In a field of seven candidates, he took 55 percent of the vote in the first round. Cutitaru also wins the title of village intellectual, locals say. He attended school for eight years, then took an apprenticeship to learn upholstering. He worked recently as a school mediator, aiming to get all of the village's Romani children in school. "I had a very difficult task," Cutitaru said. "If children missed classes for three consecutive days, I went to their homes and talked to their parents to convince them to send them to school. The next day, I went to classes with them. I brought them pastries and milk. It was especially hard with the young children because they didn't know Romanian at all. I had to teach them. Now, they're in the second grade. I want to see where these kids go." Cutitaru is proud to have 12 high-school graduates, his own five children among them, in the village, especially considering that the nearest high school is some 20 kilometers away. "If [people] have an education, their mentality changes. It's a long-term battle. It's changing, in decades, not overnight. If you have 10 to 12 years of school, you find your way easier," he said. There are 1,100 children, mostly Roma, studying in Barbulesti's school, a significant number in a town its size. Some villagers attribute the rate at least in part to Cutitaru's efforts. But not everyone has been impressed by Cutitaru. Dragnea said that the mayor has achieved little. "They distribute the social aid when they want," Dragnea said of the government. "He hasn't done anything so far." A member of the Roma Party Pro Europa, Cutitaru has been in politics for 16 years. Until recently, he sat on the council for the town of Armasesti, of which Barbulesti was a part until last year. He was known there as the unofficial mayor of the Roma. "I conducted my campaign by visiting everybody. I talked to everybody to get to know them," Cutitaru said. "I thought before doing this. I calculated what problems I would encounter. … If I can't do what I planned, I won't run for a new mandate. If I do what I planned, I'll run for another mandate." He does not have much time. Cutitaru was elected in a special poll between two regular elections. Only a year and a half remains in his current term. *Daniel Ganga is the editor of the Roma quarterly Sastipen, produced in cooperation with the Romani Criss organization. Petru Zoltan is a Bucharest-based journalist and contributor to the daily Jurnalul National.* Copyright (c) 2007 Transitions Online ----------------------------- Vali "Noble blood is an accident of fortune; noble actions are the chief mark of greatness." (Carlo Goldoni) "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." (Jimi Hendrix)
