Female power in the teenage classroom:
New opportunities for teenage girls from the Roma community
Petalouda – A center of charity
The staff help parents with bureaucratic hurdles and, with patience and respect, promote self-confidence and an understanding of rules and boundaries when living together.
wortundtat spoke to the two young women about their work with the Roma community. Anna studied Greek literature and special needs education. She comes from Greece and has been supporting children and young people with their learning gaps at school for three years. Laura is originally from Albania, lives in Greece and studied theology. She has been working in the project for two years and mainly leads Bible lessons and discussions with the teenage girls.
The two offer teenage girls from the Roma community the opportunity to talk about their issues. The “teenage classroom”, an informal term for an open discussion group, takes place three times a week. Teenage girls between the ages of 12 and 17 come with their questions and are listened to. Many of these girls are already engaged at this age. Some are already married and have children.
What is the reality of life like for the girls in the Roma settlement?
Their lives are strongly characterized by responsibility for the family. At an early age, they are often already heavily involved in the household and in looking after younger siblings or children of relatives. However, this leaves them little time for schooling or individual leisure activities.
What impact does this situation have on the girls’ lives?
The girls often do not go to school and do not receive any further education. This severely limits their future prospects. In their community, it is customary to marry early. Many families have no other options for the young women.
What do the girls learn in Petalouda and what future prospects does the program open up for them?
Petalouda offers the children, especially the girls, a safe space in which they learn to improve their school skills and develop their social skills. They learn reading, writing and arithmetic with us. This helps them to cope better at school and gives them the chance to graduate.
And they also learn to perceive and adopt opinions beyond the horizon they are familiar with. For example, many girls see for the first time that there can be another future for them outside of early marriage.
One of the girls, Maria, even went to a vacation camp this summer. How did that affect her?
We were delighted that Maria’s parents allowed her to travel to Athens with us for a few days. Maria has really blossomed. She made friends with a Syrian girl. Her first friendship outside the Roma community. She played all day and could just be a child, without any family obligations. And she saw that there were alternatives for her and her life.
What issues do most girls come to you with?
Many girls tell us that they find household responsibilities, arranged marriages and limited future prospects a burden.
Do you also offer specific topics?
Yes, we offer subjects such as emotional education, mathematics, literature and environmental studies. We also read the Bible together, talk about social skills or how to recognize and express your feelings and set boundaries.
Is this offer accepted by the girls’ families and their husbands?
It depends. Some parents are very open, like Maria. Other families are afraid to send their daughters to public schools or social programs because they want to preserve what they see as the safe and valuable traditions of the Roma community.
It’s also not about telling the girls which way they should go. We just want to train their awareness of the diversity that life offers.
Have you already noticed any development in the girls?
Yes, definitely. The number of school-leaving qualifications in the Roma community has increased enormously since Petalouda has been around. And so has the acceptance among families to send their children to school.
The prospect of a permanent job after school is encouraging more and more families to take advantage of our services. And the girls are becoming more self-confident and starting to believe in themselves and their strengths.
What is your motivation behind your work here in Petalouda?
Anna: I see the many skills and talents of the girls that they are often unaware of. I help them to strengthen their self-esteem and realize that they can achieve more than their community tells them.
Laura: I help the girls to develop the courage to break away from the expectations of the community and pursue their own dreams. I encourage them to set boundaries, say no and build their own future.
Maria discovers her life
Maria is twelve years old. She has been engaged in an arranged marriage since she was eight years old. She has a lot of responsibility in the household and helps to care for her younger relatives.
When Maria first came to the Petalouda Center, she had great learning difficulties. She could neither read nor write and was far behind her peers in her school development.
Today, she is able to form small sentences and has also improved her math skills. Her thinking has also changed: Whereas she used to accept her arranged engagement without being asked, she has now started to acknowledge and think about alternative life plans in the first place.
Especially through the conversations with Anna and Laura and her participation in a vacation camp, Maria has realized that there are alternatives to the life that has been mapped out for her. She has learned to express her feelings, to develop her own opinion and to imagine that there could be another way of life than the one her family has planned for her so far.
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