You come from a family which has lived in the capital of Moldova and spoken Romanian at home, not Romani. How do you define your Roma identity not being from the village, but hailing from the big city?
Yes, I´m a city-boy. I´m not from a traditional Roma family. My mother is Roma and my father is Romanian, we are a mixed family. But I feel my Roma roots and I´m part of the Roma community, although I don´t speak the language. What I like most about my community is that we are extremely tolerant people. We have a whole culture of tolerance. Also singing is important to me. I´m invited sometimes to perform at several events and venues. At the same time I enjoy following the events on Wall Street and the financial business.

What is the main advantage that you got from your scholarship?
For me it is the main source to maintain my education. At my university it costs 800 dollars per year to study. Also the scholarship offered me a lot of opportunities to meet new people and to create new communication channels. I often think how to solve the Roma issues in my society and also abroad. This fellowship gave me the chance to meet a lot of other young Roma from other countries and to get to know how they live and what their problems are.

What are the main problems of young Roma in Moldova?
Lack of information. There is a big gap between people in the city and those in the villages. For me it was easy to get information about the scholarship. I looked into the Internet, I´m well connected and well informed. But I can only barely imagine how an ordinary Roma boy from a village can access the information necessary for such opportunities. There is a coordinator, but a lot of Roma have never heard of this program. Even if they are informed, they are not stimulated or they don´t have the resources to apply. Sometimes they do not know how to read or write or they don´t have a computer at home.

How could the program be improved?
It is important to develop more opportunities for young Roma and Non-Roma to meet and communicate. This would help them to overcome a lot of stereotypes. I´m sure in my university I changed the image of what people thought would be a typical Roma. Some of my students thought all Roma steal or don´t have houses. But I´m not a thief and they shouldn´t judge an entire community by a unique example. I think it would be helpful, if all our scholars would meet once a year with non-Roma student. This would help change some prejudice against the Roma community.

What would be your dream for the future?
My dream would be to one day receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Also I would like to be a politician in my country and to change the society.

The interview was conducted by Gemma Pörzgen in Berlin, July 2011.

Interview in PDF

Radu Marian was born 1990 in Chisinau (Republic of Moldova). He has a college diploma in Management and Economics and currently studies at the Academy of Economical Studies. Marian works as well at IQ-Labs, an American company for online-services. He gained experience as a brand designer, creating logos for different organizations and events. Marian speaks Romanian, English, Russian and Spanish.