First-ever Museum of Roma Culture prize awarded to Czech Radio journalist
On Thursday, 3 December, the first-ever Museum of Roma Culture prize was
awarded in Brno to Czech Radio journalist and museum benefactress Jana
Šustová for her reporting, for the Czech Radio internet portal on the Roma
which she edits, and for her valuable gifts to the museum. The certificate
she received reads that the prize was awarded to her “for her ongoing
support of the museum, her assistance in building its collections, and her
ongoing promotion of Roma culture in general.”
Jana Šustová won the prize from museum staff in Brno not just for her
professional work with the Roma as a journalist, but also for the selfless
assistance she has provided the institution, as museum director PhDr. Jana
Horváthová explains:
“Our museum has done its best for quite some time to reach out to the
widest possible range of business people and personalities for support. We
don’t have much success - we are more successful with intellectual
personalities who are able to make symbolic contributions only. We were very
surprised when a journalist from Czech Radio became our greatest
benefactress.”
Jana Šustová has worked as a journalist at Czech Radio since the year 2000.
She edits the web pages www.romove.cz (recently nominated for the Gypsy
Spirit Prize) and collaborates with the Roma-language section of the
Radiožurnál radio station, which produces the program “O Roma vakeren”. In
the course of her travels she has purchased work from Romani artists and
donated it all to the museum. The prize came as a great surprise to her:
“I did not expect this at all. They told me about a month ago when I was
here for work, and made me promise to come back for the ceremony. When I
learned that the prize would be given at a meeting commemorating the Union
of Gypsies-Roma, and when I imagined all of the people who would be there
and who have been working on Roma issues for 40-50 years, I was completely
embarrassed, as a white gadje, to be receiving it.”
What prompted you to become such a significant benefactress of the Museum of
Roma Culture? Is there a personal motivation?
“I have been traveling here to record interviews for almost 10 years,
and I have very much fallen in love with the museum. I have gotten to know
its work, and also that financially it is not in a very good position, that
it does not have much money for international research or purchasing
exhibition pieces. Whenever I manage to travel abroad to record something
among the Roma, I meet Romani artists and jewelry designers, so after
reaching an agreement with the museum director, I began purchasing things
for the collection. In the end, when I brought them back to the Czech
Republic I decided to give them to the museum for free, because it’s
beautiful to support an institution like this. It’s also fun to collect and
search for Roma artwork, because it’s not so common.”
Translated by Gwendolyn Albert
| 
On Thursday, 3 December, the first-ever Museum of Roma Culture prize was
awarded in Brno to Czech Radio journalist and museum benefactress Jana
Šustová for her reporting, for the Czech Radio internet portal on the Roma
which she edits, and for her valuable gifts to the museum. The certificate
she received reads that the prize was awarded to her “for her ongoing
support of the museum, her assistance in building its collections, and her
ongoing promotion of Roma culture in general.”
Jana Šustová won the prize from museum staff in Brno not just for her
professional work with the Roma as a journalist, but also for the selfless
assistance she has provided the institution, as museum director PhDr. Jana
Horváthová explains:
Jana Šustová has worked as a journalist at Czech Radio since the year 2000.
She edits the web pages www.romove.cz (recently nominated for the Gypsy
Spirit Prize) and collaborates with the Roma-language section of the
Radiožurnál radio station, which produces the program “O Roma vakeren”. In
the course of her travels she has purchased work from Romani artists and
donated it all to the museum. The prize came as a great surprise to her:
“I have been traveling here to record interviews for almost 10 years,
and I have very much fallen in love with the museum. I have gotten to know
its work, and also that financially it is not in a very good position, that
it does not have much money for international research or purchasing
exhibition pieces. Whenever I manage to travel abroad to record something
among the Roma, I meet Romani artists and jewelry designers, so after
reaching an agreement with the museum director, I began purchasing things
for the collection. In the end, when I brought them back to the Czech
Republic I decided to give them to the museum for free, because it’s
beautiful to support an institution like this. It’s also fun to collect and
search for Roma artwork, because it’s not so common.”
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