Brno police organise summer camp for Romany children
Brno, 22. 8. 2006, 12:41 (CTK)

Brno police have organised an unusual city summer camp for Romany children where young Romanies as well as children from socially-weak families can get acquainted with police work and try to ride a police horse, police spokeswoman Anna Prochazkova told CTK today.

The camp that children can attend from Monday till Thursday was organised by the police, in cooperation with the organisations that have dealt with the problems of these children for a long time, for the first time this year, Prochazkova said.

Eighty children have gradually attended the summer camp, she said.

The organisers believe that they will be able to instill positive attitude to the police in the children.

"We want them to realise that police are there to help people," Simona Wachsbergova from the Drom organisation that has also taken part in the organisation of the event, said.

According to her, the camp is a great success among the children. Children who wanted to attend it had to draw a picture of what they would prefer to do in various year seasons and write a letter on what they would not to do at the city camp. Most of them did not want to learn, but they also wrote that they did not want to be bored.

This definitely does not threaten them at the camp, Wachsbergova said.

Apart from the possibility to mount a police horse, exhibitions of firearms and special police units operations were prepared for the children. Some of the participants decided afterwards that they would be policemen when they grow up.

The parents do not have to pay for the camp. The organisational costs - some 5,000 crowns - are paid by the organisers and sponsors.

Apart from the children from the Brno-based Romany centre Drom, children from the Teen Chalenge group also take part in the camp.

CTKK