Aleka Stobin, born in Finland 1935, moved to Sweden in 1967. His work for Roma rights and his great commitment laid the foundation for many years of work with both organised communities and working life. Aleka felt great frustration about how bad the situation was for many Roma, both nationally and internationally. He worked intensively until his death in 2001, to make authorities accept their responsibilities, so that even Roma would have access to their human rights.

As chairman of the Nordic Council of Gypsies, founded in 1973, Aleka appeared as the spokesman of the Roma and was included in many different government working groups, amongst them the government-appointed working group for the Ministry of the Interior in 1997, which in their final report presented Roma in Sweden – together in change.

Sweden ratified the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of Minorities and the Convention on Minority Languages in 2000, and this became an important milestone for Aleka, as he had worked extra hard on this issue. Many years before, he had demanded that Roma children should have access to their mother tongue in elementary school and now there was the hope that this would finally come true as the Roma were recognized as a national minority.

An important principle issue for Aleka was that Roma from different groups should work together to arrive at common solutions. His vision was that one day he would live in a multicultural society where also the Roma also were included.

Bengt O Björklund