Everything Is Illuminated, Gypsy Life from Tirana

High rate of illiteracy, unemployment at 75%, no type of service such as water and light: The Gypsies conditions in Albania are dramatics and also the help of NGOs seems to be in vain.
Not far from the city center, there is the biggest Rom camp in Tirana. The houses are made of wooden huts and makeshift tents, without any kind of basic service which ensure a minimum level of health conditions.
In addition, for the land occupation each family must pay to the owner up to 16 euros per month, that is a huge amount of money for those who do not have a full time job.
The main source of livelihood for the Rom families is begging; children are forced to ask for alms on the street from an early age. Parents don't allow their children to go to school and to have professional training.Even the involvement of NGOs makes the process of literacy difficult.
The Rom community integration with Albanian society appears to be the biggest problem: The Rom don't enjoy property rights, they can't use public health structures and there is no type of protection of minors and women against abuses by the institutions. For these reasons in the last years we record more and more cases of Rom children and women trafficking.
Although the serious situation, Rom people live their daily lives with a certain serenity: within every camp there is a strong allocation of jobs and social roles for the good life of the entire community.
They don't care about commercial relations with European community, and they live each single day without asking too many questions about the future and past.