esma

www.gegen-unrecht.at

www.esma.com.mk

www.myspace.com/redzepova

www.romani.org

www.sinti-roma.at www.verein-roma.at

Esma Redžepova (Macedonian: Есма Реџепова) is a Romani Macedonian vocalist, songwriter, and humanitarian born in Skopje, SFR Yugoslavia (today Republic of Macedonia). During her life she has performed in more than 8000 concerts in 30 countries, with her late husband Stevo Teodosievski she has fostered forty-seven children, and she has received numerous accolades for her humanitarian work. By her own account she has created more than 500 works of art. These include 108 singles, 20 albums, and 6 movies. Read more: > HERE <

Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. (The term is also sometimes used to refer to multiculturalism within an organization. This article does not currently cover that alternative meaning.) There is a general consensus among mainstream anthropologists that humans first emerged in Africa about two million years ago.Since then they have spread throughout the world, successfully adapting to widely differing conditions and to periodic cataclysmic changes in local and global climate. The many separate societies that emerged around the globe differed markedly from each other, and many of these differences persist to this day . Read More: > HERE <

Esma Redzepova travelled all over the world: New York, London, Sydney, Paris (appearing for the first time at Olympia in 1962), Mexico, India (where she was acclaimed as the Queen of Romany Songs at the first world festival of Romany music in 1976). With obvious pride she claims to have performed at more than 22,000 concerts, with a repertoire of over 800 songs. There is no way of checking such figures, but whatever their veracity they are on a par with the legend she has created. At her home in Skopje, capital of the republic of Macedonia, there is no doubt about her standing as a star in the Roma community.

The Gyspy Queen Esma Redzepova and the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble during the 1999 New Year’s Concert in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Also playing, special guest François Castiello (Bratsch).

In addition to her work as a singer, Redzepova has become an ambassador for Roma culture. In the course of her travels in and around the Balkans, she has adopted 47 children who were living on the street and introduced them to the joys of music. The musicians who now accompany her at concert performances and on recordings belong to this extended family. For several years she has been actively involved in the management of Rom-Esma, a non-governmental organisation she set up to uphold the rights of Roma women and more largely the community worldwide. When asked about disparaging remarks about travellers by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, she cited the example set by Macedonia.

„It is the only country where the Roma are recognised,“ Redzepova says. They enjoy access to education, culture (with two privately owned Roma television channels) and civic life (as the leader of a local council or MP). She is proud to have been born in Macedonia, because in other countries „the Roma are not respected and must endure humiliation and persecution“, she says. When she performed the following evening she made a point of reasserting the cosmopolitan values and traditions of pacifism and freedom upheld by Travellers.

via Integrationshaus Wien (official) at fb <

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willi_Resetarits

http://thereport.amnesty.org/world-by-region