Name
Mr Bajram Haliti
Country of residence
Serbia
Ethnicity
Rom
Occupation
Prof. dr. philosophy and sociology
BIO
I am Roma born and raised in the small city of Gnjilane in Kosovo. I have been the first university student in our family, got married unconventionally late and have three children’s who have completed university studies. I grew up in economically poor but spiritually rich family, aspiring to gain new knowledge to support their progress. My father was forced to serve the Nazis in World War II. He survived unthinkable horror, saved most of the family, and migrated to Germany in the early 1960s. Hard labor made him sick and, although he had little savings, he decided to support me to study and to take responsibility for my brothers and sisters finishing their education, developing, and maturing.
I started my professional engagement as an activist and fighter for the national and cultural rights of Roma in 1981. Since then, I had a privilege to exercise leadership in different media, non-governmental organizations, public institutions, and academia. In 1985, I started working as a journalist shortly after I took on higher responsibility of the editor in chief of the Roma Informative Program in the National Television. I worked in electronic and print media from daily and magazine press through radio and television. In the Kosovo crisis of the 1990s, I took on minister’s role in the Government and fought for the interests of the Roma, who were caught between the Serbs and the Albanians.