Actual projects

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-organizes 11th edition of the V4 Summer School in the Willa Decius in Krakow. The 11th edition of the Visegrad Summer School will bring 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 will consist of lectures, panel debates and seminars on issues and challenges relevant to the Visegrad Group region, the European Union and beyond. School will offer 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 includes debates on current political, cultural and social challenges in the regional, global and European perspective. Participants will have 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 are invited for study visit to Malopolska region, they will also attend artistic events in Krakow and insight the culture of Poland.

 

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

 

Participants cover:
- travel costs to/from/in Krakow
- their own insurance
- registration fee

 

More information about deadlines will be announced at the end of February 2012.  

 

Photo gallery from the 10th 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 is 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 means 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 has 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 focuses 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 will monitor 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 focuses 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 is 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.

Stocktaking of Good Practices with Roma Inclusion Interventions

Evaluation Survey

Donor: Open Society Institute

 

Partner: Roma Institute 

 

Obdobie: September - December 2011 

 

The Open Society Institute in collaboration with the World Bank has been commissioning a stocktaking of current and past Roma development projects in Slovakia to collect evidence of effective policies and programs on Roma inclusion in a variety of sectors, as well as record the lessons learned from past challenges with such programs.

The overarching objective of this activity has been to identify common threads and characteristics that define successful practices for Roma inclusion in order to inform Slovak policy-makers, guide the design of future interventions, and identify ways to measure outcomes. The study gathered information from a wide range of implementing agencies including government (central and local), NGOs, the private sector, and community and faith-based organizations, how various programs and projects made possible for Roma beneficiaries to access equal opportunities and integrate in various social fields such as education, employment, housing and health. Evidence covered programs in different sectors (as well as multi-sectoral) and for all target groups within the Roma population.

The specific objectives of the stocktaking have been to:
1. Gather information on current and past Roma inclusion projects, programs and policies in Slovakia that yielded positive outcomes for the Roma population, and whose lessons can inform policy and practice. Positive outcomes were defined as improvements in access to quality, non-segregated education and health services, employment and housing as well as increased voice in policy decisions affecting Roma lives.
2. Identify the factors that appeared to have contributed to successful outcomes in the selected interventions, and determine the conditions that would make possible the sustainability, replication and scaling up of such interventions.
3. Examine major or reoccurring challenges or constraints in the design, implementation, and institutional and financing arrangements of assessed interventions and how, if at all, they were addressed.
4. Draw conclusions and recommendations.

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.

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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