They say their lives have been filled with stories of ethnic discrimination, economic difficulties and lack of access to the public goods that Ferizaj offers. The only income the family had over the years was Faruk’s earnings from work at a sheet metal factory in a village outside the city.
Faruk said that for several years he ate his lunch separately from his colleagues, as they discriminated against him because of his ethnicity.
âAfter some time things changed, because I started to do them favors,â he said, adding that it was there where he learned the craft of metalworking, which worked out for him well later. It has been several years since he opened a small sheet metal workshop and with the income he supports his family. He also employed his cousin in the workshop, a cousin whom he raised together with his wife after the boyâs parents died years ago.
Hamide never had the chance to work as she had to take care of the children. She mentions the difficulties her children had in attending classes when the learning process was conducted online. Since March 2020, teaching has been conducted mainly online due to government measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Local or central institutions have occasionally assisted low-income families by providing electronic devices. Research shows that people from the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities have had the greatest difficulty in providing their children with access to online learning, and that children from these communities have largely been absent from the learning process during this time. Among them were the Bajrami’s children who had not received any assistance from the municipality of Ferizaj.
The only possibility for their children to attend online was through Faruk’s cousinâs phone, or when Faruk lent him his phone during one-hour breaks.
The Bajrami’s neighbor, Senad Komorani, has a complaint against the municipality as well. Komorani, 21, who works in an orchard, said that the head of the local government in Ferizaj has never visited their neighborhood in the last four years. The lack of investment in his neighborhood has left it with few opportunities for social life.
“There’s no need to go somewhere where I already know I’m going to be rejected. Because of the color of our skin, we can not enter a cafe,â said Komorani, suggesting that they can’t frequent other locales in the city, including youth centers, because they feel discriminated against. âThe neighborhood of the Maxhup, that’s what they call this neighborhood,â he said.
According to him, there were promises that a stadium would be built in the Sallahane neighborhood which would have helped his community to integrate.
âNear the river, that’s where they promised to build the stadium, but it never happened. “Whoever has visited us or has come we have told them we need [the stadium],” said Komorani. Along with the stadium, they were promised a youth center. He said that his friends mostly spend their time at a bar where they play video games, pool or foosball.
The bar where he and his friends spend time often turns into a music venue where they gather to share verses, or even make plans for recording songs. Recently, the group, which call themselves âSallahane 05,â has become big on social media for their rap music.
Komorani said that another problem is employment, which is connected to racial discrimination against them. According to him, the municipality has not taken any steps to solve this problem.