Partnership to raise life quality in ghetto formed in Czech town

Usti nad Labem has become the first Czech town to join the declaration on local partnerships aimed at improving life in socially excluded localities, Minorities and Human Rights Minister Dzamila Stehlikova told journalists today.

She said the partnership in Usti nad Labem associates the town, city districts with Romany ghettos, the labour office, the police, NGOs and the local University of Jan Evangelista Purkyne.

The plan to create local partnerships was initiated by the government agency for social inclusion in Romany communities.

Usti nad Labem is one of the 12 places in the Czech Republic with ghettos in which the agency is gradually establishing its workplaces.

The personnel will coordinate activities in particular towns and on the level of the central state administration so that support reaches the selected self-rule bodies participating in the pilot stage of the agency activity, Stehlikova said.

The agency was launched in April. Its goal is also to help gain and draw money from European funds for the promotion of Romanies’ education, job opportunities, housing and health.

"The readiness to cooperate with the agency in Romany integration is high in Usti nad Labem. The town has long cooperated with non-profit organisations. It is ahead of time in this respect," Stehlikova said.

Some 11,000 Romanies claimed Romany ethnicity in the 2001 census, but their real number in the ten-million Czech Republic is put at up to 250,000.