The “Now We Write It” Roma Futures Academy is a ten-month experiential learning and creative development programme running from February to November 2026, followed by a series of community activities in early 2027. The programme provides Roma university students and young graduates with a safe and inspiring space to strengthen their identity, deepen their understanding of the history of the Roma movement, and prepare for active participation in community and public life.
Building on nearly three decades of experience accumulated by the founders of Romaversitas, the programme updates and passes on this knowledge to a new generation of Roma leaders in response to today’s social challenges. It strengthens participants’ legal awareness, democratic values, and capacity to contribute to social change, while creating a bridge between the past, present, and future of the Roma movement.
The Roma Futures Academy is not a traditional educational programme, but a series of participatory workshops based on community learning, intergenerational dialogue, and creative self-expression. The workshops take place monthly as part of the Romver Sundays, where participants engage with topics such as self-awareness, Roma identity, the history of the Roma movement, resistance, the fundamental values of the European Union, social justice, future thinking, activism, and civic engagement through participatory and arts-based methods.
At the heart of the programme is the concept of imagination activism—the belief that imagination is a powerful tool for social transformation. Together, participants create the Roma Utopia, a shared vision of a future where Roma people can live with dignity, safety, and equal opportunities. This collective vision takes shape through videos, spoken word performances, social media campaigns, and other creative outputs, while also responding to a challenge frequently voiced by Roma youth: although they are often told “now it’s your turn”, they rarely receive the knowledge, skills, and support necessary to become active changemakers.
The programme evolves from learning to creation and finally to knowledge sharing. At the end of the process, participants design and facilitate their own Roma Future Room workshops for Roma secondary school students living in disadvantaged communities between January and March 2027. These workshops encourage younger generations to reflect on identity, belonging, social justice, and to imagine a fairer, more inclusive future.
The primary goal of the “Now We Write It” Roma Futures Academy is to strengthen the identity, legal awareness, democratic thinking, and civic engagement of young Roma people while fostering intergenerational knowledge transfer about the history of the Roma movement and its struggles for emancipation. The programme supports participants in becoming confident, reflective, and socially engaged young leaders who are able to articulate their own stories, shape collective visions for the future, and actively contribute to building a more just and inclusive society.
