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The Roms, aka travelling people, who are also called Rominy and Roma, have a wonderful home page in the Czech Republic, in three languages. Happily for some of us, one is English. I tripped over it while reading the Prague Post news feed about two babies who were swapped at birth and who have just been returned to their mothers. You’ll find that story on GenevaLunch’s weekly international news post, which is always featured on the right side of our home page.

I spent five minutes of reading good news about the Roms and seeing the pride and work being done to fight stereotyping. I recommend you do the same, to undo some of the harm done by all the reports in the Swiss media (including GenevaLunch) in recent weeks about begging in Geneva and other Swiss cities. It was a good reminder that it’s too easy to slip into stereotyping foreigners based on the behaviour of a very small group.

Most people reading this post are probably foreigners in Switzerland and it’s just as well to remember that we can also easily become victims of stereotyping so perhaps we should be the first to make sure it doesn’t happen to any foreigners.

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