ENTRY DESCRIPTION
Roma kids playing on the streets of Lunik IX on a winter day.

Lunik IX is a district in Kosice, the biggest city of eastern Slovakia, almost entirely inhabited by Roma people. Among few thousand (3,500 - 6,000) inhabitants live more than 1,000 children.
They live in unworthy conditions, sometimes with a dozen or so family members, nestling in twenty square meters. Although there are no walls around the housing estate on the outskirts of Kosice, almost no one from the outside visits this place mainly from the fear and stereotypes that are in the minds about the Roma people. And although perhaps some of these stereotypes coincide with the truth, children deserve attention, interest and help, because they are not guilty of anything and should have equal chances in the start in adulthood.

The Roma are by far the most long-term discriminated against minority in the EU. Eighty percent of Roma in the EU still live below the poverty line in their country. Every third Rom lives in a building without running water, and every tenth in a building without electricity. Every fourth Roma child and every third Roma child live in a household where they experienced hunger at least once in the previous month. [European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2017]

AUTHOR
Damian Lemański
aka Damian Wolf Wagabunda
is a Polish-based photojournalist documenting life around him.
He is mainly interested in man and his place in today's world.
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In 2008 Damian finished the European Academy of Photography in Warsaw - a school
of Izabela Jaroszewska PhD.
He has participated in workshops led by Kadir van Lohuizen, Pep Bonet, Tanya Habjouqa,
Espen Rasmussen, Stefano De Luigi, Michael Ackerman, Lorenzo Castore, Tomasz Tomaszewski.

Vagabond & dreamer.
From November 2011 until May 2012 Damian traveled across South America. From this solitary expedition he made a film "181".
In October 2015 Damian longed for the dust of the road and went on another journey. This time Wagabunda took his bicycle and cycled from Poland to Senegal. During this trip, together with the Foundation "Hearing Africa", he was collecting money for the education of deaf girl, Makane Dieng. From this expedition Damian made a film "Restaurant" which had a premiere in February 2018.
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In recent times he left his heart in Lunik 9, a Roma settlement in Slovakian Košice, among the children living there. To not die from time to time he is visiting this place.

Everyday he tries to love.

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