About us

MIRET – International Initiative for the Development of Ethnic Art

MIRET is a registered non-profit association focused on fostering the conditions for teaching, cultural, and artistic activities with humanitarian goals. Our activities deal with the educational, cultural, and creative environment for the Roma minority. We support Roma children and youth and their personal and creative growth.

MIRET was founded by Ida Kelarová on March 26, 1999. All its activity is based on her personal philosophy moulded after a life devoted to working with the human voice.

MIRET presents Roma culture at a professional level so that it can appreciated and recognised by the whole of society.  We show the beauty of Roma culture when it touches everyone and at the same time we seek to destroy prejudices in society. We create opportunities for encounters across barriers and  mutual understanding  through creativity and the development of a living Roma culture.

In 2011, the first generation of young Roma who have benefitted from the creative workshops and projects organised by Ida Kelarová and MIRET graduated to becoming members and organisers within the association itself. Under her direction, a group of qualified teachers who understand Roma culture and how it can be developed has been nurtured. The creative team that has evolved in association with this younger generation is truly exception and is now an irreplaceable element in all of MIRET’s ongoing projects. We are creating models, which at the moment are sadly lacking in Roma society and which are as a result needed much more.

We put our greatest hopes in children and youth because it will fall on them to take up our dreams of changing the world for the better. We work with young Roma and help them get back to their culture and identity.  We teach them how to integrate, not to assimilate, because there is a fundamental difference which children should be reminded of.

We encourage Roma children to integrate, to educate themselves and to appreciate the depth and beauty of their culture which can provide them with a grounding on which to build their positions in society. The basis for every society is recognising its own culture and roots and that is the foundation for all of our activities on this earth.

We provide children with solid foundations for their further development. We are aware that families can only pass on what they have received from their parents. That is the reason we offer a rich educational programme, so that it can support their personal and cultural development.

Children are the priority for us and we are always there for them. We carry out our work continuously and with all our hearts because it depends on us that Roma children pursue this course. And while it not possible to motivate every child educationally, we take care to offer every child a better life than can be offered by their parents alone.

Our target is that all of them grow up into self-reliant adults who are capable of founding functional families and of being good parents. Roma children face tough challenges and also a  lot of work on their own if they are to succeed.

Through our work with non-Roma children we help to link two worlds.  Unfortunately, in the schools’ curriculum there is no mention made of Roma culture. In response, MIRET brings its activities into the schools. In this way we are able to bring down barriers on both sides. When children are able to meet, the gulf between them starts to be filled and the prejudices and fears start to be dispelled.