Romania: Talia Delgado

Talia Delgado, 29, is Spanish, but against all migratory trends has decided to settle in Romania, where she is pursuing her career as a freelance journalist and social entrepreneur specialised in youth issues. Following a positive volunteering experience with the European Voluntary Service south of Romania?s border with Ukraine, in 2004 Delgado decided to move to the country?s capital where she launched Brainstorming, a youth-driven multi-media magazine that has already attracted international attention and won a Youth Action Net award (2007).

What sets Brainstorming?s mission apart from other youth magazines?
The idea behind the project is to contextualise youth problems – usually they are removed from the social and political situations they emerge from. The kinds of questions we ask are about the consequences social and political issues have for youth. On Brainstorming, young people write about their experiences in their countries and set these experiences within a real context, seeking not just to make these experiences public, but to give them meaning and significance. A large part of our mission is also to seek solutions, not just hand out information.

What kind of challenges is Brainstorming facing now?
Well, obviously funding is always an issue, at the moment we are self funded and operate on few resources, which is one of the advantages of publishing online. Also geographical distance between all the people who work on the project can be difficult at times because most of us have never physically met? But what started as a very small youth project has grown a lot in the past 3 years, and we are adjusting to this, figuring out what we have to change. For example we are trying to think about ways to reward our collaborators for their articles, as we do not pay them. We are thinking of organising online courses for them, or some kind of recognition cards. But we are rising up to the challenges that most youth initiatives have to face: lack of funding and growing up.

What would you say is the biggest challenge for youth in Romania?
I think migration is a really big problem here that affects all young people, making them feel like they don?t have a chance at all here. The ?brain drain? as it is called means that valuable people leave to seek better salaries abroad. I think there is a slight trend now for young people to go and seek experiences abroad, like study or work, that they can bring back to Romania so that they can change things here, but migration remains I think the biggest challenge. Tied to this is the fact that the salaries here are very low and bureaucracy tends to make it hard for young people to set something up for themselves or to become self employed even when they have the initiative.

Have you noticed any change in civil society since you first arrived in Romania?
Yes. There has been a real change. One of my first reactions when I arrived here was to ask ?where is civil society?!?. I could see that there were so many social and political problems around me, like corruption, people living without even their basic necessities, and yet I couldn?t see much evidence of an organised civil society. But since 2004/05 things have started to change. You start to see people gathering on the streets to protest, people are seeking to make their voices heard, especially online. I have really felt this change, from words to action and I think that now there is a real civil society.

How would you compare Romanian and Spanish civil society?
Pretty different. I think mainly because of their past, even though in some respects fascism and communism can be found to have a lot in common, the impact these regimes have had on society is really huge. In Romania it is very hard to get people to cooperate and to work together for a common goal because they still remember their past. In Spain this is different because people were used to fighting together against something, civic movements are very much ingrained in the structure of society. By living here I have really gathered an insight into the damage that communism has caused in social terms, but I think that in time civil society here will grow. One of the problems here is that there is no news about the good things that NGOs are doing, what hits the media are scandals about corrupt NGOs, so many people aren?t able to grasp what civil society can do for them, what

What terms are the government and civil society on?
The government obviously doesn?t like being reminded of their mistakes. But there is no government campaign against NGOs nor are they viewed with suspicion. The government?s attitude is more one of ?each to their own?. Unfortunately this means that there are very few consultation moments, that there is practically no cooperation between the state and civil society.

Have you noticed any positive impacts for NGOs since Romania?s entrance into the EU?
No not really, there is no more funding than before, perhaps some of the larger grants, but these go to big NGOs and foundations. I think that since the entry into the EU there have been a whole lot of legislative issues, Romania having to meet EU standards in a whole series of things and I think that their relationship with NGOs is not among their top priorities. So no, I wouldn?t say that it has had such a big impact.

More info:
http://www.brain-storming.info/index.php