The ROMACT programme helps Roma from the village of Valea Seaca in Romania to get ID documents

There are 20 Roma living in Valea Seaca, a community of about 3,000 inhabitants in Eastern Romania.  As most in this community were not registered at birth, the Roma here are facing constant administrative difficulties resulting in a lack of identity documents, which essentially means that they do not “exist” administratively. 
 
Ionela Ciobanu, for example, is a Roma woman who has lived for over 30 years without an ID card. As a direct consequence of her lack of official identification, her three children could not attend school and she also could not qualify for any assistance mgm mobile from the State.

Thanks to the ROMACT programme implemented in Romania by Romano Butiq, Valea received legal assistance to begin the legal procedures required to register as a Romanian citizen. She is now the proud owner of an ID card, which will also allow her to start procedures to register her children to receive their own identity documents.
Her story will be part of the film „Parovel” (“Change” in Romanes), which is being released in 2015.