Institute of Romani Culture in Albania

Because there is no institution in the country which documents, and institutionalizes Romani culture, the Roma identity is often looked down and even abandoned by many educated Roma (the Roma brain drain phenomena).This has led to increasing prejudice and discrimination against Roma and their isolation and segregation while most of Roma developed a primitive living style containing early marriages, depreciation of school, work in informal sectors, big families abusing children and women and the like, often named wrongly as Roma culture or Roma living style. It was this background that inspired a group of highly educated Roma youth to set up IRCA and work on documentation, institutionalization and development of Roma culture and identity through Roma youth empowerment and gradually transforming into a leading Roma advocacy and think tank organization. IRCA is established on July 1, 2011 and is very much influenced by services provided at advocacy bodies such as the Italian Institute of Culture in Albania, British Council, Peace Corps Volunteers as well as the career advice, research and documentation centers functioning within universities in Europe and North America, with most of which IRCA founders and consultants have had their own experiences.