Iași county is an under-developed region of north-eastern Romania. In the region, most of the Roma live in cities such as Iași, Paşcani and Targu Frumos. In the example of Iași, 5% of the Romanian Roma population live there. The Roma make up more than 10% of Iași's population. There are also several villages where the Roma population has the same number or even more than the Romanian population: Grajduri, Ciurea, Miroslovești, Lungani, Pietris, Crucea, Sirețel, and Cosmesti.

In all of these villages, towns and cities, many Roma are subjected to extreme social exclusion. There are high levels of unemployment and major educational challenges.

Gypsy Eye is a volunteer-led, grassroots association. It promotes social inclusion of young Roma in the Iași region in North East of Romania. The organisation was founded by a group of Roma university students.

The organisation started working with only Roma. However they realised that there were many non-Roma who have no interaction with Roma people, who have never even spoken with a Roma person and have no Roma friends. At the same time many Roma were closed in their settlements, never went out from these areas and had little or no interaction with non-Roma. From this reflection they designed the project to be open for Roma and non-Roma and for it to be a place where young people can start interacting, highlighting the fact that the Roma and non-Roma have many commonalities and can fight discrimination together.

In 2012 Gypsy Eye gained accreditation from the Romanian National Agency of the Youth in Action Programme (now Erasmus+) to train and host EVS volunteers. Gypsy Eye has organised five youth exchanges and co-organised 15 youth meetings in Romania and across Europe. More than 100 volunteers and 20 teachers have been trained to work with Roma children. They also established a volunteer club in the town of Cosmesti where four young people were supported in establishing the local youth association and writing projects.

Gypsy Eye implemented the project Messengers Against Discrimination. The project started in December 2009, and during the first year they gained wide media attention and generated political support at local level. It was something new and innovative for the region and many young Roma were keen to participate.

Messengers Against Discrimination brought together Roma, Romanian and Lippovan (Russian) young people. The idea of the project was to create a group of informed young activists who could organise events against discrimination. Since 2009, 55 young people have been trained and become involved as ‘messengers’.

The aims of the Messengers Against Discrimination project were to prepare a multi-ethnic pool of young people to literally take on the role of ‘messengers against discrimination’. Through training, they would gain the competences to organise workshops, campaigns and other activities and projects challenging discrimination.

The project was open to all disadvantaged young people, especially young Roma. They wanted to encourage mutual co-operation and foster mutual understanding between young people coming from different backgrounds. They wanted the young people to discover Roma cultural traditions and so promote a new positive image of Roma. The project was set up to develop and raise public awareness for the inclusion of minorities and find ways to combat discrimination. It would then work to promote understanding of the sources and effects of racism against Roma and other minorities.

This was achieved by working with and training groups of young people who became the messengers of understanding and promoters of social change. They themselves, as a mixed ethnic group, became symbols of the need for the involvement and contribution of all members of the community.

The idea for Messengers Against Hate came from young people who were already actively participating through the Gypsy Eye youth organisation. They selected a core group of Roma and non-Roma young people from the schools who would be supported to participate in the role of leaders of the project – the Messengers. The co-operation of young people across and despite ethnic and cultural boundaries was a strength of the project.

In order for the participation of the young people to be fully effective, the organisation needed to take into account the cultural and traditional values of the Roma communities and other communities. The project and the involvement 0f the young people was discussed with the Roma parents and elders. This was to reassure them about the involvement of their children, and how the importance of their participation was a necessary part of successful Roma youth participation.

Once the Messengers had been prepared and trained, they organised meetings with other relevant groups and introduced the idea of the project to attract potential participants for the activities and events they would organise. The young people showed themselves to be capable, not only as entertainers in the fun elements of the work, but also as educators and managers.

The Messengers organised five cultural events representing Romanian, Roma and Lippovan culture. These included dance performances, a living library, various exhibitions, food-based events, displaying of traditional costumes, and debates. They participated in the most important cultural events of Iași county, such as the Traditional Roma Ball and FestudIS – the biggest student festival in Romania – where they won the best creativity prize for the parade of the Messengers.

The final event was the ‘Messengers Ball’, which attracted around 600 people, including high-level representatives from local politics, authorities and media.

The role of the Messengers at the events was to speak about their everyday experiences. The Messengers were also responsible for the extensive media coverage that was generated throughout the life of the project, which included an online social media presence. This very much supported and projected a positive image of Roma young people.

Many young Roma face problems in terms of expressing, developing and strengthening their identity within the environments of prejudice and discrimination that they grow up in. Having the Messengers work together as a multicultural group, Roma and non-Roma, against discrimination, proved to be effective in challenging negative images of and associations with Roma. On the one hand it maximised the delivery of messages against discrimination and on the other it supported the Roma young people in their participation by strengthening their understanding of their own identity.

Through the work of the Messengers, other young people were provided with opportunities to broaden their knowledge and have their perceptions on ethnic minorities, intercultural dialogue and discrimination challenged. A positive image of Roma was promoted in the region.

The project achieved a number of outcomes. A pool of 55 trained activists was created – from the training itself many concepts for workshops were developed. Ten cultural and awareness raising events were implemented. A project website (which achieved about 13,000 hits) was developed. More than 1,000 Roma and non-Roma participated in activities organised by the Messengers. Around 10,000 people visited the events organised.

After the project had finished, many of the young people involved remained active in associations at local level. Most of them continued their participation as volunteers with Gypsy Eye. Some were motivated to continue their education, taking up places at university while remaining involved with Roma issues and concerns in other cities.

Following the project, the Messengers set up a school-based club, organised charitable activities, created Gypsy Eye’s Facebook page, founded a Gypsy Eye dance group, and participated in the ‘Romania's Got Talent’ show; some took part in the European Voluntary Service (EVS) and became involved with the ‘Heart to Heart Club’, another Gypsy Eye initiative.