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Czech government agency to help Ostrava Romanies

22 October 2012
2 minute read

The Czech government Agency for Social Integration that wants to fight against Romany ghettos will help socially excluded Romanies in Ostrava’s Slezska Ostrava neighbourhood to improve their living conditions, Marek Podlaha from the agency told journalists today.

The neighbourhood in which a quarter of socially excluded citizens live will receive six million crowns from the state within two years to finance specific projects, Podlaha said.

A 12-member group made up of representatives of the district, the Ostrava Town Hall, Ostrava University and civic associations, will help Romanies with education, employment and housing, he said.

Slezska Ostrava is the last of the 12 pilot localities in the Czech Republic in which the government agency has started its work aimed at helping socially excluded people.

The twelve members of the regional group called the Local Partnership will submit a list of concrete projects in the areas of education, employment, crime prevention, social care and housing within October.

"If Romanies in Slezska Ostrava want to live better we will help them find better jobs. If they are unable to do the job we will ensure re-training courses for them. We want the problematic localities to stop functioning as ghettos that have so far lived their own life," Podlaha said.

The agency wants to help the Slezska Ostrava authorities to resolve the question of housing in Riegrova street where it intended to sell 27 flats.

"Their residents have launched a petition. They are afraid of being dumped to the street. But the authorities do not allow this," mayor Antonin Mastalir told CTK.

He said the flats could be managed by a new non-profit organisation that would closely cooperate with local Romanies.

"It would see to it that Romany children attend school and out-school activities. A new centre is to be build near Riegrova street that children and adults will use. I hope the agency will help change these people’s lives to the better," Mastalir said.

However, Riegrova street is not the only locality in Slezska Ostrava where socially excluded people cause problems.

"In the Na Liscine street drugs have appeared and in Nova Osada in Kuncicky there are problems in relations between people. Residents there have even threatened to establish a vigilante group," he said.

The agency is to work with about 5000 socially excluded citizens in the neighbourhood.

According to the Czech Labour and Social Affairs information, there are ten large ghettoes in Ostrava in which mainly Romanies live.

In all, up to 6600 people live in these localities. Several dozen Romany families line in the localities for decades but a large majority of Romanies have been relocated there expediently only in the past years.

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