Educating the Hungarian Roma by Timmer Andria D.;

Author:Timmer, Andria D.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic

Chapter 4

Defining Need

NGO Construction of the Roma

According to Ralf Dahrendorf, “Civil society provides the lifeblood of liberty; its creative chaos of associations gives people the chance to live their lives without having to go begging to the state or some other powers” (1997, 50–1). While this statement certainly expresses the ideal of civil society and its related associations, the reality often falls short of this lofty description. NGOs are dependent on external entities and, due to this, they must often work counter to their stated aims and goals and the ideals lauded by Dahrendorf. Nongovernmental organizations cannot be sustainable if they disregard or fail to adapt to reigning hegemonic discourses emerging from the external forces of funding and governmental interests. NGOs must strive to gain recognition for their work from a variety of entities, including not only funding agencies and government officials, but also the various media outlets, their intended target beneficiaries, individuals with a vested interest in their work, and the public who may or may not be interested in the problem at hand but, nonetheless, have an influence on the ability of an organization to succeed or fail through their spending and voting power. NGOs are restricted by these many external pressures and the manner in which they work is both subtly and overtly dictated by them. In this chapter, I look at the strategies educational organizations in Hungary use in order to negotiate their need for funding and recognition. These strategies govern their day-to-day activities and ultimately construct the Roma population as one “in need” and the Roma beneficiaries as “needy subjects.”1 I argue that the result of such discursive strategies is the creation of a situation in which neither the NGO as provider of aid nor the Roma as recipients of aid are satisfied.

Funding Bodies and Hungarian NGOs

As I have already discussed the funding structures and regulating agencies in chapter 2, I will limit my discussion here to the restrictions funding bodies implicitly or explicitly impose on Hungarian NGOs. It is first important to point out that there is no lack of funding for these civil sector enterprises. The EU spends a sizeable proportion of its budget on nonprofit enterprises and a significant share of this goes toward supporting programs aimed at improving the livelihoods of disadvantaged groups, especially the Roma. However, at the same time, all my interviewees at NGOs cited funding and financial support as among their biggest barriers to overcome. The director of one NGO went so far as to say that it was his only problem. What is going on here? The issue is not a lack of funds but the restrictions that come with these funds. NGOs must successfully learn “EU speak” in order to benefit from the wealth of monies available. Proposed projects must be “EU compatible” and fit in with existing policy competencies and political priorities (Sluiter and Wattier 1999, 31). For many this is easier said than done. NGOs without the benefit of a full-time accountant or financial manager suffer greatly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.