Czech MP moving into impoverished Romani neighborhood in northern Bohemia
Czech MP Eva Fialová (ANO) will be moving into the Předlice neighborhood in the Czech city of Ústí nad Labem for half a year beginning in June. She wants to get to know the life of local Romani people there and to take advantage of that experience to combat poverty.
“After several years in politics, I have come to understand that many politicians are out of touch with what life is really like in our country. They do not understand how things really are and they don’t know what to do about them. They just visit our areas, give a speech, take a look at a couple of buildings and leave. That’s not enough for us, so I will be personally undertaking this,” she posted to her Facebook profile.
The legislator wants to focus especially on aiding people with finding dignified housing, the education of children, and loan-sharking. “Generally speaking, it’s good for a mainstream politician to decide to get to know the lives of Romani people more closely. Residing in Předlice will certainly be a very intense experience, it’s an extreme locality,” Miroslav Brož of the Konexe organization told news server Romea.cz.
“This is purely my private activity. I am no longer interested in hearing the constant racist remarks, whether from politicians themselves or people from Prague who absolutely do not know what conditions here are like and who decide about social affairs from behind a desk,” the MP told news server deník.cz.
“She won’t have to fear for her life here and nobody will steal her car either. If she works mainly with the long-settled residents, then the effect will be useful,” the former vice-mayor of the central district in Ústí nad Labem, Karel Karika (PRO! Ústí), told news server deník.cz.
“People here are not accustomed to anybody else taking an interest in them,” Karika added. Petr Globočník (Zelení – Greens), a local assembly member in Litvínov, another town in northern Bohemia’s Ústecký Region, is also planning to move into the socially excluded Janov housing estate there in order to fulfill an election promise, according to deník.cz.
