[ad_1]
Slaana is compared to reality star Kim Kardaijan, but she says it doesn’t occur to her to head to show business.
Source: BBC
While photographer Sever Zolak was preparing an exhibition based on the artist Paja Jovanovic, he was told that one of his models would be a girl of gypsy origin, to counter the stereotypical representation of gypsy women in public, most of the time as exotic beauties or dancers.
Wanting to show that “Roma women are rarely an inspiration to artists,” Zolak decided that Slaana Novakov, 27, would be the model for Jovanovic’s 1930 painting “Portrait of a Young Woman in a Pink Dress.”
Slaana will turn 27 in November and says she “achieved everything I had planned so far”: She graduated as a hairdresser, has a steady job, as do her two sisters.
The success of your family is easy to see if you know that only 0.7 percent of Roma in Serbia are highly educated.
One in three Roma have not completed primary school, and in the general population it is one tenth, according to the publication of the Republic Statistical Office “Roma in Serbia”.
“I am what I am”
Slaana grew up in a Roma settlement in Opovo, near Zrenjanin.
“I wouldn’t change that. And now I have dreams like I’m there, with my family where I grew up,” Slaana told the BBC in Serbian.
In his native Opovo, he went to elementary school and high school, the direction of pastry chefs, he went to Panevo.
She graduated from the nine-month hairdressing academy in Belgrade as a student of the generation and has been working in a salon in Beanijska kosa for four years.
“My sisters and I were called, I separated myself from all that, I have different thoughts.
“So you and the world around you and the people you work with and live with help keep you from feeling that way,” says Slaana.
Like Slaana, her sisters work in Belgrade.
The oldest finished her studies at the Law School on time and works as a judicial associate, and the youngest is a nurse at the Military Medical Academy.
All three live with partners but are not married.
“I could have hidden that I was a gypsy woman, no one had said anything about it anyway, but I am myself,” he says proudly.
Due to such an attitude, Moda did not suffer discrimination either during school or later.
“It never happen. I have wonderful colleagues, I like to complain to my account so that people know that it is not a problem for me.
“Kau, be that whore, you’re a good man, I look the same. I’m proud that they accepted me like that,” says Slaana.
Some Roma still use a horse-drawn carriage / BBC
Roma in Serbia: a vicious cycle of poverty, lack of education and discrimination
The level of education is the darkest of the Roma reality, it is stated in the publication “Rome in Serbia” of 2014.
Authors Svetlana Radovanovi and Aleksandar Kneevi conclude that this is a “vicious cycle.”
We must also take into account the complexity of this issue and the lack of ambition of the gypsies regarding the care of their children, which is reflected in the early departure of the children due to the need for the children to win a network or marry before, or the inconveniences Roma children experience at school because they are poorly dressed. , alive and dirty, they live in conditions of extreme poverty and lack of hygiene ”, he adds.
A 2006 survey of Roma settlements in Belgrade found that the majority of children who go to school are willing to finish school because they believe it will lead to a better life.
However, unlike children, parents are convinced that there is a problem of discrimination in the car, not because they are gypsies, but because they are poor.
According to data from 2016, 80 percent of Roma in Europe live on the brink of poverty.
In Serbia, 15.1 percent of Roma are illiterate, including two-thirds of women. The national average is two percent.
According to official data, almost one in three Roma women give birth to a child under the age of 18, while in the general population three percent of women do so.
Some Roma still use a horse-drawn carriage / BBC
“I have Kim Kardaijan in the building ”
Slaana in the North was joined by her comedian and her friend, creator Dejan, who had been trying to get in touch with her for days.
They had not known each other for a long time.
“As Sever told me, I was looking for a beautiful Romany woman and Dejana said, ‘Well, I have Kim Cardian in the building.’ She didn’t believe him,” she says with a shy smile.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGe3FRvJV4J/
Although the shooting with Zolak was the first, in two or three hours it was all over.
When asked how photographers hadn’t photographed her before, she replied that “she wasn’t in such a company.”
“I’m withdrawn, I don’t like to stand out, I don’t like to push myself out of the crowd, probably because of that.”
It was not difficult for him to pose, on the contrary.
“I was honored that she chose me,” says Slaana, who is considering fashion and modeling.
However, it does not occur to him to enter the world of reality, like Kim Cardian.
“Imagine joining the Cooperative and becoming famous, so it would kill me right away,” he says.
‘Just to thank you, it’s us’
Some Roma still use a horse-drawn carriage / BBC
Sever Zolak, although he is a fashion photographer, has extensive experience working in documentary photography and easily decided that this shoot should be socially engaged.
“I have that burden on my back from the war in Bosnia and the refugees.
“I live a life that is completely different from the beginning and I am sick of the stories of people with hearing problems,” said Zolak, a native of Kljuc in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Today, he says, he has many Roma friends and constantly meets new people who are successful and interesting in their own way, but not in public.
He notes that many reacted very positively to Slaana’s portrait, even before the official opening of the exhibition at the Museum of the City of Belgrade.
“When I arrived at the museum one day, two gypsy women were waiting for me there who take care of hygiene in the museum.
“They said, ‘Just to say thank you, it’s us.’ It was a wonderful scene for me,” says Zolak.
He didn’t give the photo any further thought, but if the dice match and you’re interested in buying it, you’d like to donate the money to charity.
“I would like, for example, to help two parents, also Roma, who have five and three children each and collect secondary raw materials by riding old bicycles, to provide them with electric bicycles.
“They recycle and do serious work, and one of them is a single father,” says Zolak, who recently photographed them.
‘You have to go in a circle‘
Slaana Novakov grew up in a house in a part of the city where the Roma live, but mostly in an informal settlement.
There are around 600 informal settlements where people do not have electricity, water and basic living conditions in Serbia.
“This awareness must also change among the gypsies, it is not just about someone giving them money and helping them. They should think about working with that money, so that it can be of help,” he describes.
Slaana says that there is help and that this informal settlement no longer exists.
“Everything is new, it is done, everyone has houses with electricity and water across the street.
“And his consciousness has changed, zero,” says Slaana.
Childhood is still the most beautiful part of Slaani’s life.
Thanks to her parents, she and her sisters did not lack anything.
“They say ‘no conditions, no conditions,’ my parents didn’t have conditions either, so they worked day and night,” he says.
When I was a child, I was friends with Serbs and Roma; that’s how he grew up, he said.
“When you only hang out with Serbs, stay away from who you are. We were never allowed to avoid one or the other,” he says.
His mother gave children’s things to relatives and comedians, who have less than they do.
His father works in a warehouse for a pharmaceutical company and his mother finished cooking school and worked in a restaurant, and is now a homemaker.
They differed from the komija and the family in that there were “at least three children” in their family, and the parents could dedicate themselves to all.
“I didn’t like going to the car either, but I knew I had to.
“Even if we have to do our homework, we go back home, those habits are learned then, that’s the only obligation of the child,” he says.
The position of the Roma in Europe
Roma women are among the most disadvantaged groups in Europe, as they suffer double exclusion as women and as members of Europe’s largest ethnic minority, according to a World Bank report.
According to the 2011 census, there were 147,604 Roma in Serbia, but the number is estimated to range from 250,000 to 600,000, according to the NGO Civil Right Defenders.
Although there is no reliable data on the Roma population in the Western Balkans, their percentage of the population in Bosnia and Herzegovina is estimated to be 1.7% and 9.6% in North Macedonia.
The position of the Roma in Europe
Roma women are among the most disadvantaged groups in Europe, as they suffer double exclusion as women and as members of Europe’s largest ethnic minority, according to a World Bank report.
According to the 2011 census, there were 147,604 Roma in Serbia, but the number is estimated to range from 250,000 to 600,000, according to the NGO Civil Right Defenders.
Although there is no reliable data on the Roma population in the Western Balkans, their percentage of the population in Bosnia and Herzegovina is estimated to be 1.7% and 9.6% in North Macedonia.
Hard-working and ambitious
And while the ban on working in hairdressers lasted due to the corona virus epidemic, Slaana worked privately with regular clients.
“I take my suitcase and go to Beania, because women who want to paint call me, tea.
“Women wanted everything then,” he says with a smile.
And if he gets into the waters of fashion, he does not intend to leave the profession.
Your goal is to open your own hair salon.
You have a partner, but that doesn’t affect your business plans either.
“I want to be someone who has money, so they can silence me, then they stay on the street. It is out of the question.
“Even if I had a rich boyfriend, I’d do my job,” says Slaana.
Only when you have a worker, buy an apartment and a car, plan to get married and finally have a child.
“I want to have a normal person with whom I can have a child, and that is difficult to find today.
“I never long for something that is impossible. When I look at my life, I want to create something, but to fight,” says Slaana.
Follow us Facebook I Twitter. If you have a suggested topic for us, please contact [email protected]
Follow us Facebook I Twitter. If you have a suggested topic for us, please contact [email protected]
Source: BBC News in Serbian
[ad_2]
