On November 21, the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees was held at the EVZ Foundation in Berlin, where the report and activities of the Board were discussed.

IRU President Zoran Dimov is also a member of the Board at this meeting. During the meeting, apart from the report, priority of activities in the next year will be discussed.

Otherwise, the Board of Trustees decides on all fundamental questions that are part of the remit of the EVZ Foundation.

It determines the focuses of the Foundation's funding and activities, and establishes guidelines for the use of the resources. The Board of Trustees is international, and its current 28 members are delegated for four-year terms, for example, by the German Bundestag and Bundesrat, German economic players, and the states and organizations involved in the international negotiations that led to EVZ's establishment. The Board of Directors is responsible for current business activities of the EVZ Foundation and implements the resolutions of the Board of Trustees.

The International Roma Union - IRU and its president Zoran Dimov, and all IRU delegates who are more than 60 from 50 countries sent an appeal to the UN, the European Union, international organizations, associations of the Roma diaspora and all international actors to urgently help the Roma, as well as to other vulnerable citizens of Turkey in the area of seismic movements (earthquake).

According to the IRU, the delegate from the Republic of Turkey Kemal Vural Tarlan with his organization Kırkayak Kültü from Gaziantep states that the exact number of dead and injured is not yet known, but it is known that about 200,000 Roma lived in the area of the ten threatened cities.

Their houses have been destroyed and it is appealed, except for the Roma, to help everyone. IRU deeply believes in and supports good relations between Turks and Roma who are citizens of Turkey.

At the same time, the IRU expressed its condolences to the President of Turkey, Recep Tayip Erdogan.

As every year, this year in 2022 the regular autumn Parliamentary session of IRU will be held. It will be held on Sunday, November 6.

It will be attended by over 60 delegates from 40 country from all continents of the world through a ZOOM conference.

According to information from the Presidency of the IRU headed by President Zoran Dimov, as well as the President of the Parliament Rozita Groinfors, due to the specificity of the situation, several topics that are important for the Roma nation will be discussed.

The activities that are planned to be realized in the coming year 2023 will be expanded, and due to the interest of more and more Roma from all over the world, the possibility of joining the IRU will be considered for an even larger number of IRU members and delegates.

Normally, the focus will be on active action in all fields and participation in a large number of international events where the future of the Roma people is decided.

The public will be promptly informed about all adopted declarations and resolutions.

IRU, as the oldest and largest International Roma Organization, together with its President Zoran Dimov, as well as its membership, is preparing a response to the relevant institutions in the Republic of Turkey, as well as to the European Union and the UN, due to the received information about the unequal treatment of the Roma community in rehabilitation. and helping the Roma community in the region that was affected by the catastrophic earthquake on February 6 of this year, with the epicenter in the Pazardzhik district of the Kahramanmaras province. IRU and concerned according to the information from the IRU delegate from Turkey, Mr. Kemal Vural Tarlan who is himself from the city of Gaziantep which was affected by the catastrophic earthquake.

The earthquake hit the neighboring provinces of Adiyaman, Kilis, Osmaniye, Gaziantep, Malatya, as well as Şanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Adana and Hatay, where about 13.5 million people live, including about 2 million Syrian refugees. According to the WHO, the affected regions in Turkey and Syria are home to about 23 million people, including 1.4 million children. But that number also includes the Roma community, which is percentageally large in those parts.

According to the latest data, over 40,000 people lost their lives, and over 110,000 people were injured. But unfortunately, the number of the Roma community is not known. Damage surveys show that 56,080 buildings and structures in 10 provinces have collapsed or are severely damaged. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport reported that a total of 237,000 people were evacuated from the disaster area.

But the question arises whether the Roma from these provinces are adequately taken care of or are they left to fend for themselves. Unfortunately, all this information is currently unavailable, but the IRU is preparing a reaction that will be forwarded to the relevant institutions in the Republic of Turkey, as well as to the European Union and the UN and other international institutions, in order to lead in these extremely difficult moments for that people who are located in those parts of Turkey, including the Roma, so that they are not forgotten by the state and international institutions, including the people of Syria and the Roma from those regions.