The Soros Rroma Foundation and the Roma National Congress, both being committed to the support of development projects within the Romani community and especially to training young Roma for assuming leadership tasks in community work, decided to join in ini tiating a training project for young Romani leaders.

Initial experience was gathered at a first pilot seminar for young Romani leaders, organized jointly by the Roma National Congress and the council of Europe's European Youth Centre in Strasbourg (April 1995). The program for a following series of training courses was drafted during the past months by an academic team of the RNC, and will be launched in August. It forsees a series of tea-day courses for persons who are already active in Romani-related community work In the context of the seminar in Strasbour g, a number of candidates for the training courses were contacted.

The survey in the Czech and Slovak Republics was intended to locate further candidates. Those who appear to qualify for the course, have been invited to apply for participation. In the seminars, they will be confronted not only with the results of research on Romani history, language, and basic theoretical aspects of community work with Roma, but will also be expected to take part in and observe practical issues.

Those pertain to social work, educational activities and media-oriented tasks. Successful absolvees courses will be directed to specialization courses and specific training oportunities offered by the Open Society and Soros Foundation in their countries of residence. They will be offered close cooperation with RNC projects in the domains of education and media.

Last year, the Roma National Congress was approached by a number of institutions on the national and international level, including UNHCR and the Federal Office for the Recognition of Asylum Seekers in Germany, and asked to submit and opinion and an evalua tion of the situation of the Roma in the Czech and Slovak Republics.

An extensive report which was originally planned to be released on the occasion of the joint CSCE and Council of Europe Human Dimension Seminar on Roma in Warsaw in September 1994, was delayed due to the appearance of a new, decisive dimension in the situa tion in question, namely the new citizenship law of the Czech Republic. In view of the significant changes in the situation of the Roma in both countries following this law, the RNC decided to undertake a more thorough survey in the Romani communities in t he region.

In order to avoid multiplication of tasks, the survey was conducted in exchange with the Open Society Foundation in Prague, and mrs. Ina Zoon which has been active in documenting the civil rights situation of the Roma in the Czech Republic. The survey, of which only preliminary results can be presented now, was carried out by members of the Roma National Congress staff, who have been gathering experience in Roma-related social and community work as weil as in civil rights issues over a period of many years. It was jointly financed by the Roma National Congress European central office (Hamburg), and the Soros Rroma Foundation (Zurich).

In a series of trips to the Czech and Slovak Republics between November 1994 and June 1995, 1.200 Roma in 44 communities were interviewed. Some were interviewed at length, and the conversations were documented on tape.

All participants in the survey were asked to provide answers in response to a standardized questionnaire. The questions dealt with their life history, focusing especially on incidents of racist aggression and racist violence in the community and by members of the administration and state security forces.

A special section in the questionnaire dealt with sexual harrassment and sexual violence towards Romani women. These questions were put to the interviewees by female interviewers, and the data gathered in response were shocking.(Comparable data were also c ollected, in a parallel survey, in a number of communities in Hungary). Interviewees were also asked at length about their plans and future perspectives, and it is on these issues that the following remarks in this preliminary report wish to focus.

Ninety percent of those interviewed in the Czech Republic, we can state on the basis of a sound estimate, see no perspective in remaining in the country. For all of them, this pessimistic view of their future in the country in which they were born and rais ed is connected to the recent developments in the domain of citizenship legislation, and the fact that most have failed to acquire the Czech citizenship on the basis of the new prerequisites set by the new law. Generally, therefore, the survey reveals a p r ofile of not only dissatisfaction with the current situation, but indeed of deep insecurity and mistrust of the legal and political institutions in the country.

Of those interviewed in the Czech Republic, most combine with their frustrated feelings toward thecountry and their perspectives in it concrete plans of emigrating.

We inquired about priorities for emigration countries, and received the following profile; Germany was mentioned most often as the first priority, followed by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In Slovakia, by comparison, those who said they consider emigrating also had Germany as their first priority, but the Netherlands as the second, followed by France. There are still no obviously recognizable reasons for the difference in opinion trends, but it must be noted that around ten percent of those who intend to leave have already tried to emigrate, his general impression - an urge to leave the country and emigrate to the West, motivated first by racist aggression and racist attacks, and lately by legal insecurity following the change in citizenship legislation - is confirmed by reports received by th a RNC on immigration movements from the Czech and Slovak Republics to Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. The Roma Union in Frankfurt/Main has recently been approached by several dozen families from the Czech Republic, who have asked for leg a l counseling and political support in order to attain political asylum in Germany. The RNC offices have been approached by individuals, who have sought refuge in the Netherlands and were inquiring about the possibilities of assistance in carrying out le g al procedures there. Similar queries have been addressed to the Vereneging Lau Mazirel in Amsterdam, and to RNC partner lawyers in the Netherlands and the UK.

Our preliminary results, which allow to draw a general profile of the feelings and plans of action within the Romani communities in both countries, thus point to a general profile which shows increasing dissatisfaction, which seems to have already reached a point of no return, where the persons, indeed the population concerned is contemplating a mass exodus in search of legal security and political stability.