Located in the north-eastern region of Veneto, Padua has a population of 209,460 inhabitants. In the Paduan context Roma and Sinti groups have been living in the city for many decades. At the same time, however, the city’s proportions – approximately 210,000 inhabitants over an area of 92 square kilometres, make the impact and promotions of the phenomenon on the different realities necessarily different.
Padua represents an interesting chapter of this research since here we can meet, at the same time, different typologies of settlements of the minorities.
- Parking area authorised by the municipality (in yellow on the map, right side): That’s the historic settlement authorized by the local authority, often remembered as the “Via Longhin Camp,” which originally arose in the 1990s in an area owned by the City of Padua to accommodate a few dozen refugee fam-lies fleeing the war raging in the countries of former Yugoslavia. In terms of employment, most of the camp residents turn out to be self-employed.
- Self-built accommodation in cooperation with the Municipality of Padua and the Opera Nomadi NGO (in yellow on the map, left side) – The “Hope Village”: The “Hope Village” is a project, started in 2006, conceived by Opera Nomadi, a NGO then active in the municipal area, and implemented in collaboration with the City of Padua. The project was aimed at relocating in this area some family units of the “Venetian sinti taic” ethnic group. The project consisted in the construction of twelve masonry housing units, with the personal involvement of the members of the Sinta community of Padua, in collaboration with the Municipality of Padua which made the building land available and acted as guarantor. All those present hold Italian citizenship and belong to the Venetian Sinti ethnic group.
- Public housing: Over the years, some of the Roma and Sinti communities living in the city have been able to benefit from the opportunity to be relocated in the context of public housing. A total of 17 households with a total of 101 persons are housed in these dwellings, with a calculated average of about 6 persons per unit. The dwellings, with an estimated average surface area of approximately 95 sqm, are distributed throughout the municipality.
- Private settlements on owned land (in green on the map): We refer here to land, mostly agricultural, purchased privately by members of the community, in order to settle permanently with their caravans or motor homes. Scattered throughout the city are also, more often than in marginal, mostly industrial areas, individual settlements of a few households with their own means of transport (camper vans or caravans), who settle for temporary periods in mobile settlement areas.
- Spontaneous mobile settlements: More difficult to locate and map as they are mobile. Generally on the edge of the city, they concern almost exclusively the Romanian Roma community.
We will find more informations soon in the research the partners are developing in collaboration with the University of Padua.
