Our DG JUSTICE ENGAGE project “Using contact interventions to promote engagement and mobilisation for social change” has just entered into it’s second year. We will present and assess our preliminary findings on a sounding board meeting on 28th of January 2022, which will be open for public.
In the ENGAGE project, social psychologists, sociologists and social intervention professionals from three European countries (Hungary, Slovakia and Spain), meet with the objective and commitment to successfully deal with anti-Gypsyism, as well as understand and promote the factors involved in raising awareness and mobilization of Roma people and non-Roma as allies for the achievement of a more egalitarian social change.
Recent research shows that, while positive contact experiences can improve attitudes, it can also reduce the commitment and mobilization of minority groups to defend their rights, so it is vitally important to know the precise effects of intergroup contact interventions. Therefore, the main objective of the best practices analyses is to present a description of interventions for Roma inclusion and engagement, justifying in each case why it should be considered an example of good practice for: (a) addressing the problem of anti-Gypsyism and the indifference of the non-Roma majority, (b) promoting the empowerment of Roma identity and/or the social and political participation of Roma people, and (c) raising awareness about inequality and/or mobilize non-Roma people as allies for social change.
The program of the event is available on the ENGAGE webpage or on the Facebook event.