Our partners from Portugal at visit in Prague

Our foreign partners from the Portuguese organisation Solidariedade Imigrante (SOLIM) came to visit SIMI from 18.4. till 21.4. 2012. Our guests had the opportunity to exchange information about migration laws and residence permits in both countries, to visit the „Market of non-governmental organisations from Prague 2“ and meet a group of cultural mediators who work for the community centre InBáze, The guests could also participate at a guided tour in the Vietnamese marketplace SAPA and other places in Prague where migrants live (churches, community centres etc.). At the end of the stay a visit to the Centre for supporting foreigners in Pilsen took place.

For more details have a look at the Final Report

The most important part of the programme was a discussion on „Possibilities of cooperation between non-governmental organisations and job centres at supporting the integration of foreigners at the Czech job market“ which took place on 20. 4. 2012 in the meeting room of the Regional office of Pilsen. The discussion was held by the representatives of SIMI, the Portuguese partner organisation SOLIM, the job centre and job inspectorate of the Pilsen region, the municipality of the city of Pilsen and the representatives of the regional office of the non-governmental Organisation for Aid to Refugees (OPU).

According to the discussion there were only 667 job permissions in the Pilsen region by 31.3. 2012 which is quite a low number compared to the 43 334 job permissions in the whole Czech Republic. The reason why the number is so low is the increase of the unemployment rate in the region from 3 % in 2008 to 10 % this year. The job inspectorate has difficulties in detecting the so called ´schwarzsystem´. Moreover foreigners themselves don´t encourage to more controls because they aren´t familiar with their rights or because they are afraid what the result of such a control would be. According to the experience of the non-governmental organisations foreigners are victims of the current crisis as well as of the governmental measures from last years which are connected to it. For more details about this discussion have a look at: http://www.migrace.com/cs/pracovni-migrace/projekt-urady-prace-a-nno/pm-kulate-stoly.