New director of the Czech Agency for Social Inclusion: If only more Roma were working in leadership posts!
The Agency for Social Inclusion has a new director - who once was the old director. The Czech Government has appointed Martin Šimáček to the post, who was dismissed from it by then-Human Rights and Minorities Minister Jiří Dienstbier eight years ago.
How does Šimáček assess the Agency today? “The Agency has quite declined in prestige and its effectiveness in the localities is much less than it used to be, there’s no doubt about that. It’s known. Remaining long-term in the same towns wouldn’t be a problem if the situation in many of them weren’t so demonstrably stagnant. Development has halted a bit. The interest of the towns in collaborating has weakened,” Šimáček said in an interview for ROMEA TV.
The returning director went on to say that there are still enough people working for the Agency who do a good job in the towns. The problem, according to him, is the leadership of the Agency, which has not been supporting the staff.
Šimáček’s criticism touched on former director David Beňák, who managed the Agency until March 2022. “The director plays a crucial role in this, he has to bring the team together, he has to be able to get the attention of the towns and villages, support the local consultants. That simply was not done. On the contrary. When I saw David Beňák during different negotiations and situations, he frequently did not support his colleagues in the localities. I think that’s the fly in the ointment,” he said.
The interview for ROMEA TV also covered other subjects, such as the lack of Romani people among the Agency’s employees. Šimáček admitted that he himself had made errors in that regard when he was director previously.
“I think it’s necessary to work at the local level not just with Romani people, but with everybody for whom the work is being done. There are many Romani people there. It’s necessary to find the ones who are astute and get them to the negotiating table. That’s participation, strengthening their role. The Agency has to concentrate on that more than before, and that’s also one of the mistakes that I made along the way when I was there. I think more Romani people have to be involved that way than was customary previously. Romani people unfortunately work in worse positions long-term because they are considered unable to deal with more important positions. That’s not true, it’s nonsense,” Šimáček said in the interview for ROMEA TV.
Other topics covered during the interview were why the Agency became a department of the Ministry for Regional Development, how it would be best to finance it, how many people the Agency has aided so far, and how much it has cost Czech taxpayers.
