Unstoppable Voices of Resilience | Exhibition Opening and Conversation with CoE Commissioner for Human Rights
An early evening with representatives of Roma Women and Youth organisations from Germany in conversation with the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.
Join us on October 16, starting with 17.30 CET, at ERIAC’s Gallery Space in Berlin, for an inspiring and critical exchange on the struggles, achievements, and visions of Roma women and youth leaders in Germany. This event highlights their unstoppable voices of resilience and resistance against the multifaceted nature of antigypsyism, and their commitment to building a just and inclusive Europe.
The conversation takes place on the occasion of the visit of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, to Germany. ERIAC is honored to be the first host outside Strasbourg of the travelling exhibition The Unheard 12 Million, based on the Commissioner’s personal book of the same title.
With the participation of:
Tayo Awosusi-Onutor – Board member of RomaniPhen feminist archive, author, publisher, singer
Violeta Balog – Vice Chair of the Board of Amaro Foro, Head of the Documentation Center on Antigypsyism (DOSTA/MIA Berlin)
Michael O’Flaherty – Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights
Moderated by:
Dr. Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka – Deputy Director of ERIAC, author, cultural anthropologist
Event Agenda
17:30-17:45 – Welcome and Opening of the exhibition: The Unheard 12 Million – A travelling exhibition, curated by ERIAC, based on the Book of Michael O’Flaherty, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.
Presentation of the Book and Exhibition by Michael O’Flaherty, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.
17:50-18:30 – Interactive discussion with representatives of Roma organisations based in Germany and the audience
18:30-20:00 – Reception with music
Michael O’Flaherty
Dr. Michael O’Flaherty was elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in January 2024. He is the fifth Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe. The Commissioner’s mandate lasts for six years and is non-renewable.
An Irish human rights lawyer, Commissioner O’Flaherty has served as the Director of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (2015-2023), as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (2004-2012), as Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (2011-2013), and in various posts at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, notably in setting up operations in conflict-affected countries such as Sierra Leone and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Commissioner O’Flaherty has held professorships of human rights at the Universities of Nottingham (U.K.) and Galway (Ireland), where he has also led their Human Rights Centres. He is currently Adjunct (Honorary) Full Professor at the University of Maynooth and at University College Dublin. He has published widely in the field of human rights.
Tayo Awosusi-Onutor
Board member of RomaniPhen feminist archive, author, publisher, singer, who describes herself as Afro-Sintezza. In 2021 she published, JOKESI Club, the first German-language children book series featuring Romani and Sinti characters as the heroes of the story; JOKESI Club volume two was published last year.
Violeta Balog
Founding member of Amaro Foro and member of the board .Head of the Documentation Center on Antigypsyism (DOSTA/MIA Berlin). Activ on anti-discrimination work and local political work in Berlin.
Dr. Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka
Dr. Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka is an anthropologist and Roma activist, born in 1985 in Cracow/Poland. She earned her Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in 2016. She holds an MA in European Integration from UAB and an MA in Comparative Studies of Civilizations from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (UJ). She is the author of policy evaluations, reports and articles, and is the co-editor of the book “Education for Remembrance of the Roma Genocide: Scholarship, Commemoration and the Role of Youth” (Libron, 2015). She has been an employee, member, founder and collaborator of numerous Roma organizations in Poland and Spain.
From 2008 to 2012 she was the European project coordinator at the Federation of Roma Associations in Catalonia (FAGIC). From 2013 to 2015 she was an Open Society Foundations Roma Initiatives Fellow, conducting a comparative study of the Roma associative movements in various countries of Latin America and Europe. From 2015 to 2017 she was the coordinator and curator of the Academic Section (aka. Roma Civil Rights Movement Section) in the RomArchive – Digital Archive of the Roma.
Download the book “The Unheard 12 Million”
Download the book HERE.
