The City of Brno has accepted a subsidy of CZK 1.2 million from the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic to establish a programme aimed at better integrating foreigners in Brno, according to an April 17 announcement on the city’s official website.
Brno, Apr 19 (BD) – Part of the funds will be used to create the Local Strategy for the Integration of Foreigners (Strategie integrace cizinců, or SIC) in Brno, which will be implemented from 2019 to 2024, according to the announcement.
The operations of the SIC will be guided by research that was done last year by SocioFactor, a Czech-based research institute, which focused on the social networks of foreigners from Brno’s Indian, Ukrainian and Arab communities.
“The network analysis provides concrete information about these three networks of foreigners living in Brno and also shows how these groups can communicate, work and create specific integration goals,” said research team leader Dr. Daniel Topinka, PhD, according to the city’s announcement.
The research results, released in early April, indicated that overcoming the language barrier was key to integrating successfully in Brno, but that foreigners were generally displeased with the quality of language courses offered in the city and the lack of English services available at public offices, according to an article published in Prague Monitor on April 16.
In a report posted on its official website on April 16, the city cited a desire to avoid the lack of integration between foreigners and their host cultures observed in some other world cities.
“[I]ntegration is a two-way process between the target group of integration and the majority society,” the report reads.
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