Czech Govt Roma Affairs Commissioner meets with Vice PM for Digitalization Ivan Bartoš
Last week the Czech Government Commissioner for Romani Minority Affairs, Lucie Fuková, met with the Vice Prime Minister for Digitalization, Ivan Bartoš, who is also the Regional Development Minister. They discussed the functioning of the Agency for Social Inclusion and how to address Romani social exclusion, and not just in economically-afflicted regions.
“The Agency for Social Inclusion falls under the Regional Development Ministry and is the body of the central Government supporting social inclusion in excluded localities with an emphasis on improving the socioeconomic situation of socially excluded Roma. That makes collaboration between the Agency and the Government Commissioner for Romani Minority Affairs absolutely crucial,” said Bartoš, adding that they have to cooperate in areas where their agendas overlap, chiefly emphasizing general improvement to the position of Romani people in the Czech Republic.
The Agency for Social Inclusion strives to contribute to the inclusion of socially excluded localities into mainstream society and to reduce social exclusion in structurally-affected regions. It offers municipalities professional support in finding solutions for how to effectively aid residents with accessing employment and housing or coping with difficult situations in their families, as well as combating trafficking in poverty.
Bartoš and Fuková addressed the details of that collaboration during the meeting. “We discussed many questions that bother members of the Romani minority, and not just them. We touched on, for example, the importance of preschool education, the subject of addiction and its impact on the life of the entire community, affordable housing, and digital instruments simplifying access to social aid,” Fuková said.
According to the Regional Development Ministry (MMR), a planned law on support for housing will offer a set of optional tools facilitating municipalities with resolving their residents’ situations in accordance with their needs; the tools will support various forms of counseling, guarantees for apartment owners in the private sector, and motivations for municipalities to develop their own housing stock. “This law does not just target people in housing precarity (e.g. single mothers living in shelters or residential hotels, or senior citizens living in substandard units), but also those endangered by rising prices or by the energy crisis who could soon end up homeless,” an MMR press release states.
