Ostrava

Romani community member Jozef Facuna has passed away in the Czech Republic

18.10.2019 7:22  full story

Prague City Council disagrees with Czech bill to consolidate two housing benefits into one

9.7.2019 6:51  full story

Czech MP with extreme-right group is evicting Roma onto the street

3.3.2019 11:30  full story

Czech Republic: Realtor tells tenants they'd better not be on welfare

7.11.2018 9:03 The Czech Republic's biggest private provider of rental accommodations, the Residomo company (which until last February operated under the name RPG Byty_ has stopped extending the rental contracts for some of its tenants. In the Ostrava-Poruba neighborhood this particularly concerns buildings on Dělnická and Skautská streets.  full story

Czech city of Ostrava to see ALL JOBS fair later this month

2.11.2018 11:00 The Helping for All (HFA) company, which is involved with supporting the employment of people from socially excluded localities, people living with disabilities or people growing up in children's homes, will hold its ALL JOBS fair on 16 November in Ostrava at the OC Galerie shopping center. The company also offers aid to the wider public with finding new employment and starting career changes.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani Student Movement says Roma must be involved in addressing affairs that affect them

20.7.2018 11:04 Earlier this month, Romani college students in Ostrava, Czech Republic officially established their group called the Romani Student Movement. In an interview for ROMEA TV, they say they are convinced that only by involving Romani people themselves in addressing affairs that affect the Romani community will effective solutions be found to various problems.  full story

Residents of Czech neighborhood announce "Two Weeks of Vigilance" to protest their impending eviction

16.7.2018 7:43 On Monday 9 July the residents of the Bedřiška neighborhood in Ostrava, Czech Republic announced "Two Weeks of Vigilance" out of concern that they will lose their housing there. The event, subtitled "Colors of Bedřiška" (a reference to the annual music festival Colors of Ostrava), is meant to draw attention to the difficult situation of the locals and present life in the neighborhood, which has not met the definition of an "excluded locality" for some time, to the public.  full story

Czech Republic: More than 3 000 Roma celebrate International Romani Day on a square in Ostrava

9.4.2018 7:54 More than 3 000 people, the vast majority of them Romani, assembled on Saturday afternoon on Svatopluk Čech Square in Ostrava to celebrate International Romani Day. The initiators of the event were two Romani students, Vladimír Čermák and Vladimír Kočko.  full story

Czech Justice Minister visits Moravian-Silesian Region's excluded localities, housing is the most essential issue

2.4.2018 8:12 Life in excluded localities, trafficking in "social housing", unemployment, indebtedness, educational problems, and crime. All of these subjects were encountered by Justice and Human Rights Minister Robert Pelikán and Deputy Justice and Human Rights Minister Martina Štěpánková, who runs the Human Rights Section, during their third trip together with the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion.  full story

Czech MP from the far right is a trafficker in poverty

19.3.2018 8:29 Lubomír Volný, an MP in Tomio Okamura's "Freedom and Direct Democracy" (SPD) movement and a regional assembly member, has been renting properties for five years to the same impoverished families that the SPD customarily labels as "inadaptables" or "parasites", making money from the very welfare system that the SPD otherwise rejects as costly and dysfunctional. Public broadcaster Czech Television has reported on his business dealings in detail during an episode of Reportéři ČT that aired on 12 March.  full story

Czech Republic: Boxing club gets boys and girls off the streets of excluded localities

23.2.2018 7:32 Patrik Horváth, David Tokár and René Pokuta established the Boxing King Club in Ostrava a year and a half ago. They had no experience with managing a boxing club but put their minds to it and the outcomes their charges have achieved after a year of operations are motivating them to continue.  full story

Czech Police searching for man who assaulted students for speaking English in Ostrava

9.12.2017 10:24 A group of international students were assaulted on 25 November on a tram in Ostrava, Czech Republic by a self-proclaimed local resident because they were speaking English. After provoking them, the man disembarked with the group and struck two of them.  full story

video"Europe: Which Children Matter?" Discussion in Ostrava on 17 November about Roma segregation in education

18.11.2017 11:35 On 17 November at the PANT studio in Ostrava the documentary film "Europe: Which Children Matter?" was screened, followed by a discussion with human rights activist Gwendolyn Albert, activist and researcher Lucie Fremlová, director Jenne Magno, activist Edita Stejskalová, and Ostrava residents involved with the production of the film about Romani children's access to mainstream schools. News server Romea.cz broadcast the discussion live and the recording of it is above.

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TODAY! Livestream of discussion about segregation of Romani children after "Europe: Which Children Matter" screens in Ostrava

16.11.2017 15:18 On Friday, 17 November at the PANT studio in Ostrava the documentary film "Europe: Which Children Matter?" will screen at 16:00, followed at 17:30 by a discussion with human rights activist Gwendolyn Albert, director Jenne Magno, activist Edita Stejskalová and other guests about the inclusion of Romani children into mainstream schools. News server Romea.cz will LIVESTREAM THE FOLLOWING DEBATE.  full story

Almost 2 000 Roma assemble in Czech town to ask for equal access to quality education

13.11.2017 12:33 According to organizers' estimates, almost 2 000 Romani people assembled in Ostrava on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the judgment against the Czech Republic for discriminating against Romani children in their access to education which was handed down by the European Court of Human Rights. The Romani people gathered to ask for equal access to quality education for their children.  full story

Roma to demonstrate in Ostrava, Czech Republic, Saturday for equal access to quality education

8.11.2017 10:22 On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the European Court of Human Rights judgment in the "D.H. case" against the Czech Republic for discriminating against Romani children in their access to education, a concert by popular Romani bands and performers will be part of a "happening" on Svatopluk Čech Square in Ostrava this Saturday, 11 November at 13:00. Many experts on education will speak at the event, both parents and professionals.  full story

videoRomani psychology student who is a ROMEA scholarship winner featured on Czech Television

8.9.2017 9:30 "Our parents never went to college, but I was told I would go to college by them at home from an early age," Roman Koky, a Romani student of psychology, says in a reportage produced by the "168 Hours" program on public broadcaster Czech Television. Along with his brother Michal, who is studying pharmacy, Roman Koky has attended a recent "Baruvas" ("We Are Growing") meeting of Romani high school and college scholarship recipients.
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Czech Republic: NGO disagrees with court that principal discriminated against Romani preschoolers

11.3.2017 10:45 The Life Together (Vzájemné soužití) organization has issued a statement of support for the principal of the Pěší Primary School in Ostrava-Muglinova which, according to a judgment by the District Court in Ostrava, discriminated against two Romani preschoolers when it refused to enroll them into first grade in 2014. The organization disagrees with the court that principal Kamil Krahula behaved in a discriminatory fashion when making that decision.  full story

Czech court rules that school ethnically discriminated against Romani children by rejecting their enrollment

3.3.2017 12:35 The Pěší Primary School in Ostrava-Muglinova discriminated against two Romani preschoolers when it refused to enroll them into first grade in 2014, according to a ruling by the District Court there. The court found that the school was attempting to unjustifiably regulate the number of Romani children in the first grade class.  full story

Dušan Červeňák: "I don't believe in projects much - you can't work with people from behind a desk"

15.12.2016 1:11 "This work is not about education, but about aid to those who need it," says DUŠAN ČERVEŇÁK, vice-chair of the Ostrava-based group Romipen. After 12 years of practical experience in Ostrava's excluded localities, where he has worked as a Romani adviser and field social worker, he decided this spring to establish his own nonprofit organization.  full story