Actual projects

Developing inclusive policies: Housing and infrastructure of marginalized Roma communities in the use of EU funds in Slovakia

Donor: Open Society Foundations

 

Period: January - June 2013

 

The project analyzes policies and the use of structural funds in the field of housing and infrastructure that are aimed at tackling social exclusion of marginalized Roma communities.

 

We identify municipality policies employing intersectoral approach, i.e. they interconnect housing and infrastructure measures with other key areas (employment and edcuation). The project is based on an interdisciplinary approach combining secondary data analysis, public policy analysis and empirical research.

 

The main objective is to assess the limits of both EU and state funds' use in the processes of Roma inclusion, as well as to contribute to a broader discussion. Furthermore, the project analyzes so called hard cases that could help us reveal structural deficiencies of state housing policies.

 

 

 

 

Social fieldwork research on implementation of LGBT equality and social policies by public authorities

Donor: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Time period: December 2012 – August 2013

 

As part of a continuous cooperation with the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) CVEK conducts a research aimed at rights of LGBT people in Slovakia.

The main purpose of this research is to collect data that can contribute to understanding of how national (public) law and policy aimed at protecting, promoting and fulfilling the fundamental rights of LGBT persons is applied on the ground and how it could be further developed  in  a  sustainable  way. As part of the research a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews will be held with public authorities, which have a decision-making competence, and professionals (health care providers, teachers, headmasters, police chiefs, police staff) having hands-on experiences and views on the  practical functioning of LGBT policies.  Interviews will also focus on their views and experiences on initiatives that have been set up outside of a larger national framework (pilot projects, third sector cooperation, etc.).

 

This project is complementary to a quantitative on-line survey measuring the extent of discrimination, victimisation and hate crime as experienced by LGBT persons . The outcomes of both researches will allow identifying future priorities and possibilities of improvement of social policies and initiatives in the  area of rights of LGBT people.

 

European Modules and Integration at Local Level (EMILL)

Donor: European Fund for Integration of Third Country Nationals

 

Project Leader: ISMU Foundation

 

Partners: Region of Lombardy Region of Umbria Region of Campania CIDIS Onlus

Members: ACIDI, Portugal CVEK, Slovakia Hessisches Ministerium der Justiz, für Integration und Europa, Germany Integration Centre, Ireland IRFAM, Belgium Cabildo de Tenerife, Spain

 

 

The project consists of comparison and exchange of integration practices between regional administrations and research centres throughout Europe. The objective is to develop a common methodology of analysis and bench-marking of integration practices while taking into account the European Modules on Integration of Migrants, notably language courses and access to services. The project seeks to support the implementation of policies promoting integration in a bottom-up fashion.

 

More specifically, the objective is to:

 

1. Assess whether and to what extent European Modules on Integration of Migrants are taken into consideration while implementing policies/practices of language learning and access to services;

 

2. Develop a common methodology for the analysis and bench-marking of practices stemming from the European Modules;

 

3. Check how practices on language teaching and access to services meet the guidelines expounded in the European Modules;

 

4. Launch an exchange of knowledge on integration practices undertaken locally in considered areas;

 

5. Collect relevant information to be displayed on a website dedicated to the definition of indicators, the monitoring and exchange of good practices.

 

School as a community. Inclusive education environment creating in elementary schools.

Donor: Government Office of the Slovak Republic

Time Period: October 2012 – March 2013

The aim of the project is to support the ability of schools to implement inclusive education and create examples of best practices. To pursue this goal, the Center for the Research of Ethnicity and Culture will engage in cooperation with three elementary schools form different regions of Slovakia. The leading philosophy of the project is inclusive education which will ensure an equal opportunity for the success for each child as well as equal treatment for him/her as a school community member. Within the framework of the project, activities to support a better social environment in individual schools will also be paramount. In the end, one of the important takeaways from the project will be the Guideline book, outlining possibilities for utilizing elements of inclusive education in elementary schools. The project builds on our organization’s agenda dealing with researching, monitoring and analyzing, on the grounds of which we collect data and experiences regarding the education of children with different social, cultural and language backgrounds.

Cooperation with European Union Agency for Fundametal Rights (FRA) within the FRANET network

In the second half of 2011, Center for the Research of Ethnicity and Culture (CVEK) became the national focal point of European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) within the network of research institutions FRANET. The network engages organizations in each EU member state as well as Croatia.

Within the cooperation the main task is to collect data on fundamental rights issues in Slovakia and their processing according the FRA specification. In 2011, CVEK elaborated a baseline study on the observance of fundamental rights in 2011 for the yearly published Annual Report.

In 2012 we have been working on following issues – victim support services, impact of economic crises on gender equality, conditions of participation of children in fieldwork research and data protection and redress mechanism.

Outputs of the collaboration between CVEK and FRA are available on the FRA website.

Summer School V4 - 11th edition (2012)

July 1 - 14, 2012

Partners: Willa Decius Association Krakow;

Asociace pro mezinárodní otázky Praha;

Foundation Cracovia Expres Krakow.

 

Donor: International Visegrad Fund

  

Period: July 1 - 14, 2012 

 

In 2012 CVEK co-organized 11th edition of the V4 Summer School in the Willa Decius in Cracow. The 11th edition of the Visegrad Summer School brought again together 50 young Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak students, as well as some students from other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The program consisted of lectures, panel debates and seminars on issues and challenges relevant to the Visegrad Group region, the European Union and beyond. School offered many opportunities to learn about each other and to start an international co-operation between the people and the countries.

 

The program of the eleventh edition of the Visegrad Summer School included debates on current political, cultural and social challenges in the regional, global and European perspective. Participants have had a chance to summarise transformation processes in V4 countries in various aspects, achievements of the Visegrad Group as well as strengths and weaknesses of the integration – both regional and European. The participants have been invited for study visit to Malopolska region, they also attended artistic events in Krakow and insight the culture of Poland.

 

The organizers provided: 
- educational program and materials
- special events
- accommodation and board

 

Participants covered:
- travel costs to/from/in Krakow
- their own insurance
- registration fee 75 Euro

 

More information about the Summer School can be found at:

www.visegradsummerschool.org 

Deadline for submitting on-line applications has been 31 March 2012.

 

Photo gallery from the 11th edition of the Summer School here

 

Measures to improve the education of Roma children - are they truly inclusive?

Analyses of the current situation and recommendations for improvement

Donor: Government Office of the Slovak Republic

 

Period: October 2011 – March 2012

 

The main goal of the project has been based on qualitative empirical research to evaluate the current public policy measures aimed to improve the education of Roma children in terms of their inclusiveness. This meant to assess to what extend the measures enable full and equal opportunities for Roma children to participate in the educational process without endangering their own cultural identity. Based on the research CVEK research team had an ambition to formulate recommendations to improve existing policies and if necessary to suggest alternative tools, which would support the inclusive education of Roma children and prevent systematic exclusion of Roma children from mainstream education.

CVEK´s project focused on two basic types of measures: pedagogical measures (especially teaching assistants, zero grade, individual integration), and financial measures (e.g. subsidies for food and school supplies, motivational scholarships, etc.) from a so far unexamined perspective - inclusive education, which respects the social disadvantages and also cultural differences. CVEK monitored the extent to which these programs help the Roma children in being able to fully participate in school without having to assimilate and to give up their identities. CVEK focused on the examination of the extent and if at all the educational system bears the burden of the process of inclusion. In the center of a CVEK´s concern therefore was whether the school is adapted to the needs of Roma children, or if only the adaptation of the minority into the existing structures is expected.

Enhancing prospects of integration of third countries nationals on the local level

Research and educational project

Donor: European Fund of Integration of Third Countries Nationals 

 

Period: March 2011 - June 2012

 

Building capacities of actors of local integration policies through networking and development of information base.

 

The project has been concerned with integration of migrants on local level. It is assumed that successful integration of migrants depends on the way this matter is perceived dealt with by local stakeholders. Local stakeholders in this project include not only regional and local self-governments and their subsidiary organizations but also various, civic associations and migrants living in particular municipalities themselves.

 

The project aimed to focus attention of the above mentioned stakeholders on the issue of migration and integration in the light of regional development. This goal has been achieved by collecting information on the issue (statistical data, information on legislation and public policies, interesting examples of integration on the local level from abroad etc.) and by providing information to the stakeholders on regular basis (bulleting and informational website).

 

The next step of the project has been concerned with selecting municipalities/towns (5 altogether) where info-points were established. Info-points serve as information providers but also to help network relevant actors of local integration policies. In the course of the project implementation several informational and coordination meetings were held in the selected localities. The meetings were conceptualized as a room for discussions of actors of local integration policies about integration of migrants in particular municipalities. Relevant stakeholders were offered individual consultations regarding issues of integration of migrants in their municipalities or integration related problems they might encounter.

 

CVEK launched a formal cooperation with following regional partners:
Bratislava - city borough Bratislava- Old City
Košice - ETP Slovakia
Martin - Municipal Office Martin
Trnava - Regional Development Agnecy for the Trnava Self-Governing Region
Zvolen - Municipal Office Zvolen

Based on the cooperation with the said regional partners and networking meetings on the local level a framework strategy of foreigners’s integration was drafted for each town. The strategies explore populations of foreigners in each town, their situation and needs, institutions concerned with integration of foreigners, availability of support services for migrants and the concept documents’ approach to migrants’ integration on the local level. The strategies conclude with challenges and recommendations aiming to improve the process of foreigners’ integration on the local level.

The project includes several informational materials serving as a source of information on migrants’ integration for local actors of integration as well as wider professional public:

Bulletin Integration of migrants on the local level/1
Bulletin Integration of migrants on the local level/2
Bulletin Integration of migrants on the local level/3

and the informational website www.integration.sk

 

Project was financed by European Integration Fund for Third Country Nationals within the programme Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows.

Monitoring minority policies in Slovakia

Monitoring and advocacy project

 

Donor: Think-Tank Fund OSI

 

Period: December 2010 - December 2012

 

Project Monitoring minority policies in Slovakia has an ambition to fill in the domestic gap in monitoring minority policies with a broader objective changing the discourse on minorities and related policies. Project also complements existing periodical monitoring of international bodies. Saliently, CVEK is hoping to embark on processes that could help alternate minority rights debate, improve minority policies and increase political commitment necessary for their sustainment. The project is based on an idea that Slovakia shall no longer be constructed as a state owned by ethnic Slovaks, but as a multicultural country of all its citizens and permanent members to ensure the inclusion of minorities. The transformation would mean that minorities are no longer viewed as a danger to the majority and consequently to peace and stability. Instead, their claims should be viewed as a matter of justice and equality. Such discourse would open new innovative avenues for accommodating even the most deprived groups such as the Roma.

To achieve our objectives CVEK engages with research and monitoring of minority policies standards accompanied with advocacy activities to convey these policy changes through capacity building of relevant decision-makers; and participation in policies drafting.

 

CVEK experts draw on international minority rights, the Slovak constitutional law, and political theory of liberal pluralism to develop standards for monitoring. CVEK monitors how international standards contained in such important treaties as the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities are observed and implemented. CVEK also evaluates developments in minority’ policies by reference to two foundational criteria of minority protection: peace and security, and human dignity, accepting that moving towards human dignity means progress. Developing minority rights through reference to human dignity also requires a contextual accommodation of diverse minority groups and their individual members given their multiple sources of identities.

 

Monitoring:

The project’s monitoring results in two main deliverables: a quarterly newsletter and an annual report on minority policies in Slovakia. Electronically issued quarterly Minority Policy in Slovakia timely informs, highlights, and provides a critical reflection on the most recent events in minority policies. The annual report, published in both Slovak and English language, provides both a grasp of broad trends as well as detailed and informed analysis of particular events based on developed minority rights standards. The annual report contains also one in-depth case study on a selected issue relating to minorities and minority policies and includes also a set of concrete policy recommendations.

 

Advocacy:

The advocacy component of the project employs two approaches: capacity building of relevant decision-makers through a series of workshops and participation in policies preparation. The objective of the workshops is to educate about various avenues on thinking about minority policies, explaining alternatives of minority policies and thus increasing their capacity to adopt sound policies. Additionally, through the workshops CVEK attempts to establish a channel of regular communication with state officials and politicians that create and influence minority policy following on the policy recommendations contained in the annual report.

 

The other segment of the advocacy strategy is directly focused on participation in policies drafting. Furthermore, CVEK would make use of state administration’s inter-departmental amendments procedure, which would allow us to submit our objections and suggestions and enter policies discourse before they are adopted by the government.

 

The objective of this project is large scale as it seeks to be one of the important elements in promoting fundamental changes to conceptualize Slovakia and its relationship to minorities. CVEK recognizes that our center and this project have limited capacity to investigate these changes and this agenda must be supported by at minimum a broader social movement of several stakeholders, including saliently minorities themselves to be successful. Challenge notwithstanding, CVEK believes that sustained and independent research monitoring accompanied with advocacy activities will contribute towards the development of inclusive, fair and context-sensitive policies for the diverse minority communities.  

  

At the beginning of May 2011 CVEK issued 1st volume of the critical quarterly MINORITY POLICIES IN SLOVAKIA. Quarterly is a part of the project Monitoring of the minority policies in Slovakia and critically evaluates topics of minority policies for first quarter of 2011. It focuses on issues such as double citizenship; amendments of a law on state language and on usage of minority languages; so-called Roma crime; regional elections from the perspective of Roma political participation; proposal of the law on aliens status, or on integration of migrants.

 

The first issue of the Quarterly MINORITY POLICIES IN SLOVAKIA can be downloaded here, the second one here, the third one here.   

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