Phralipen

Phralipen is the leading media platform in Croatia, where members of the Roma community together with members of other minority communities and the majority people work together to create content with an emphasis on investigative journalism, "live" stories of people and positive experiences. The contents are available in four languages, which makes it unique, but also accessible to a wider readership. Diversification of reporting through the presentation of different perspectives on a certain topic contributes to the understanding of the complexity of social issues and challenges.

The lack of diversity in journalism and insufficient knowledge of minority issues, especially of the Roma, results in poor media representation of minority communities and their experiences. Media representation and articles about Roma are often one-sided and produce stereotypes. This deepens prejudices and marginalisation of Roma people. 

Phralipen shows that the Roma community is an important source of solutions to social challenges. They are also leaders in redefining representations of themselves and their communities. The project teams produce stories about minority communities while working on developing new initiatives and collaborations. 

Members of the Roma community collaborate to ensure the authenticity of local information and introduce topics for journalism. Newsroom and Rome community members serve as translators and improve the multilingualism of the articles, including the Roma community's mother tongues. Members of the majority population and other minority communities participate in the project, contributing to pluralistic perspectives and the project’s media content. 

Phralipen is available online and in print. The publication counters stereotypes and prejudices with facts, ensuring the media is a community and education space. Content creators also (re)claim their right to self-representation, self-determination, and self-realisation. 

Phralipen, in all its segments, can act as a model for using media for social innovation; it is also adaptable to other population groups. In addition to the project’s media programming, it is an educational platform and provides mentoring to develop inclusive journalism.