Yulian Kondur: Our father taught us: «You should understand what you are doing and be a professional

Society

«Ai Tu Jianes. Did you know that?» will get you acquainted with the faces of the Romani community in Ukraine. This time, we are going to talk about the «Fiery Hearts» band, about legal advocacy as a form of self-defence and about how was it: to be the sixth child in the family. Our conversation is going to be with Yulian Kondur, the co-ordinator of the International Charity   «CHIRIKLI» Romani Women’s Fund.

You can hardly find a person in the Ukrainian Romani community who wouldn’t know or heard about the Kondur Family.

Zemfira is a legal advocate well-known both in Ukraine and abroad who has been the voice of Romani women for over 25 years now. As of the present time, she is the manager of the Kyiv Office of the Council of Europe. Volodymyr is a native of Kyiv, the founder of the Romani Legal Advocacy Centre, a Representative of the Office of the Ombudsman for Ukraine. Human rights advocates and activists—Fedir, Lina, Kapitolina, and Yulian—are all children of Yuliia and Anatolii Kondur, founders of the Association of Romanis of Izmail City and the CHIRIKLI Romani Women’s Fund.

Yulian, the youngest child of the family, recalls his father as a person who showed by his own example how important education is for him.

«At the age of 14, my father went to study in Kyiv. Back then, that was something of an exception, as his parents [grandma and grandpa—ed.] did not even want him to go to school at all. Grandpa even went to try and take him back home. Grandma, though, insisted that my father continue his studies. Our father has always been a symbol of insistence when it came to getting an education. He always said: «You should understand what you are doing and be a professional in your trade». My father was a professional choreographer. My mother attended academic classes and courses together with my father. She was not a student, though she wished she were. Given the fact that she tended to her children and the household, she, alas, did not have time and possibility to enrol. Nonetheless, mother always says that all of our diplomas are her diplomas, too. And all of us think so, too».

At the same time, as Yulian stresses, his Mum, Yuliia Kondur, a civil activist and an artist, has studied on her own throughout her life, without a higher education.

It is through her initiative in 1994 that CHIRIKLI Romani Women’s Fund Charity was founded—the first ever Ukrainian organisation which drew the attention to the issue of the rights of Romani women in Ukraine both nationally and internationally.

Listen to the audio version of this conversation by opening the file attached.