Current Projects

Multicultural Europe in the Media

The European project 'Multicultural Europe in the Media' is a partnership project of Multicultural Center Prague. The project aims to improve media presentation of migration and minority issues. It is also focused on NGOs dealing with migration to improve their presentation in the media.

• Research on existing media and integration projects at national level.
• National training for journalists and NGOs.
• Round tables.
• International conference

Duration of the project: 1/2010 - 6/2011

The project is supported by the European Commission.

Project coordinator: Barbora Tošnerová

Phone: (+420) 296 325 345

E-mail: mise@mkc.cz

Visawatch - what is the situation on Czech consulates and embassies?

The project about Czech visa policy focuses particularly on three countries - Ukraine, Vietnam and Mongolia. These countries represent important source countries of immigration to the Czech Republic; however local functioning of the Czech diplomatic missions is rather problematic.

The emphasis is on analysis and evaluation of the situation in the selected countries of origin, with the aim of increasing general awareness of the visa issue, to point to the main problems connected with visas and create a space for their consideration. Information about the issue of visa issuing will be presented on migraceonline.cz and eventually in the Czech media.

• Reportages about the current situation in consulates and embassies in the selected countries.
• Interviews with visa applicants, diplomatic mission employees, middlemen, etc.
• Expert articles.
• Blogs and commentaries.
• Public debate and final conference.

Duration of the project: 9/2009 - 3/2011

The project is supported by the CEE Trust.

Project coordinator: Lucie Trlifajová

Phone: (+420) 296 325 345

E-mail: visawatch@mkc.cz

Regularization as One of the Tools for the Fight against Irregular Migration

The project focuses on the problem of undocumented migration of foreigners from the third countries who work in the Czech Republic without a work permit or without residency permit. The aim of the project is to find innovative solutions to this serious problem which involves the whole society (and which includes: exploitation of foreigners; lowering of employments standards as a result of discriminatory lower cost of irregular work; fiscal losses of the state budget in taxes; and security hazard). The project will combine activities such as awareness raising campaigns, social and legal counselling and lobbing. Within the frame of international cooperation and on the basis of inspiration from other European countries, particularly from Spain and Portugal, the Czech partner seeks to use their experiences in the field of social inclusion of these socially excluded groups.

Duration of the project: 6/2009 - 5/2011

The project is financed from the European social fund through the Operational program "Human Resources and Employment" and the state budget of the CR.

Project partners:

• Association for integration and migration
• Organization for Aid to Refugees

Project coordinator: Marie Jelínková

Phone: (+420) 296 325 345

E-mail: migrace@mkc.cz

Quality Integration Through Quality Information

The project of the Multicultural Center Prague is focused on the issues of integration of migrants in the Czech Republic. The activities of the project involve awareness raising through publication of specialized articles and interviews and through organization of debates and expert seminars. Some outputs will be published in important Czech media.

You can find all outputs from the project on the migrationonline.cz website in the Integration section.

Duration of the project: April - December 2009

The Project is supported by the European Union.

Project Coordinator: Barbora Tošnerová
Phone: 00420 296 325 345
E-mail: mise@mkc.cz

Migration Policy in Crisis

This project of the Multicultural Center Prague and the Counselling Centre for Citizenship, Civil and Human Rights is focused on labour migration in the Czech Republic. There are two different but complementary activities in this project. First, the project is dealing with the position of labour agencies on the Czech labour market. Second, the visa issuing process and access to information at Czech embassies and consular offices is monitored. The aim of the project is the evaluation of the role of all stakeholders involved in labour migration to the Czech Republic, especially labour agencies and Czech embassies abroad. Promotion of the project's outputs through public media is also an important part of the project realized in close cooperation with La Strada, another NGO working in this field.

Duration of the project: May - December 2009

The Project is supported by Open Society Fund.

Project coordinator: Tereza Saková
Phone: 00420 296 325 345
E-mail: seminars@mkc.cz

CSO Development Effectiveness – FoRS’ priority topic for the EU presidency

The Multicultural Center Prague (MKC) as a partner organization is the coordinator of the Migration and Development working group within the Czech Forum for Development Co-operation (FoRS) project. FoRS, together with its partner organizations in the Czech Republic, the EU and other regions of the world, reflects on the effectiveness of its own development activities.

With the unique opportunity presented by the Czech presidency of the EU, FoRS would like to contribute to the global process of assessing effectiveness, coordinated by the Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness (www.cso-effectiveness.org). MKC and the Migration and Development working group are interested in the flow of remittances from the Czech Republic to migrants’ countries of origin. Together with the Czech Ministry of Finance, MKC has organized a seminar on this topic: “Remittance Flows from the Czech Republic and their development impact”. At this seminar international participants – representatives of NGOs and migrant communities, the state administration, the financial sector and academic institutions – discussed ways of enhancing the development potential of remittances sent from the Czech Republic. A study on this topic has also been written and will be presented at the final conference. Other topics discussed within this project include development education, good governance, and sustainable technologies for sustainable development.

The project is supported by the European Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. The seminar on remittances was also supported by the Ministry of Finance and the IOM.

Coordinator: Tereza Rejšková

Email: rozvoj@mkc.cz

CZECH MADE? Against Double Standards and Exploitation of Migrants in the Czech Labour Market

The Multicultural Centre Prague has launched the project "Czech Made?" to raise public awareness about the exploitation of migrant workers in various branches of the Czech economy. The label "Czech made" is commonly used to reasure consumers that products are of the highest quality. The question mark in the title of our project implies that apart from the quality of the products, there is also a difference in the quality of working conditions when comparing Czech to foreign labourer. Migrant workers are often denied fair working conditions and find themselves in situations where their fundamental human rights are violated, in many branches of the Czech economy. The aim of the project is to stimulate public debate, which would in turn lead to the formation of a political strategy which would allow the country to satisfy its need for foreign workers without putting the human and social rights of labour migrants at risk. This will be achieved through six complementary modules (investigative research, an information portal, training seminars, an exhibition, public debates along with film screenings and lobbying). A wide range of contributors, including representatives of NGOs, representatives of immigrant communities, employees of state ministries, politicians and representatives of the business community, will join the debate.

The central element in the project strategy is investigative research. Journalists will research the employment of foreigners, in branches of the Czech economy which are characterised by a high percentage of foreign workers. Research results will be published in the cultural weekly A2 and on the information portal www.migrationonline.cz and will serve as a basis for the "Czech Made?" exhibition. The exhibition will inform the public about exploitation of migrants through the introduction of concrete examples of migrants' life stories as well as giving often anonymous foreign labourers a face. There will also be six public debates and four film screenings focusing on different aspects of labour migration. Complimenting this, employees of labour offices and recruitment centres companies will be given six one-day seminars, which will provide them with practical information and help on employing migrants legally without violating their dignity. Another important module of the project is lobbying. Politicians and employees of state ministries will be lobbied using legislative analyses, the field research of journalists along with the information generated from the information portal. Combining research and journalistic methods, the project aims to achieve improvements in migrant workers' working conditions in the Czech Republic.

Project partners:

Cultural weekly A2 (Sdružení redaktoru a spolupracovníku A2 kulturního týdeníku, o.s.), Counselling Centre for Citizenship, Civil and Human Rights (Poradna pro obcanství, obcanská a lidská práva, o.s.)

The Project is supported by the European Commission and the European Cultural Foundation (www.eurocult.org).

Project coordinator: Karolína Linhartová

Tel.: (+420) 296 325 346

E-mail: czechmade(at)mkc.cz

Bringing Awareness of Development Issues into Regions

Multicultural Centre Prague is the partner of Caritas Czech Republic in the project "Bringing Awareness of Development Issues into Regions". The project aims to raise the awareness of these issues mainly in two ways. First, originally created development education trainings for teachers of 11-15 year olds is offered in 8 regions of the Czech Republic and also Czech schools are encouraged to launch partnerships with schools in developing countries. Second, the project will inform general public through a number of articles about development issues published on the website migraceonline.cz, with a special focus on migration and development. This project is co-financed by the European Union through the Actions to raise public awareness of development issues in Europe.

Bridge IT

This European project Bridge IT is a partnership project of Multicultural Center Prague. The aim of the project is raising awareness and exchange of good practises in the area of integration of immigrants through information technologies. The project is focused on 3 areas of integration - civil society, labour and education. The project has 25 partners from a whole Europe; the main coordinator is University of Barcelona.

• Social network on the Internet - Bridge IT
• Booklet of good practises of integration of immigrants through information technologies
• Guideline how to integrate immigrants through information technologies
• International seminars
• National seminars
• Final Conference