Prague opened an aftercare center for Ukrainian refugees. It will help with their integration | Company | News | Prague Gossip
Ukrainian refugees who already live in Prague can apply for help at the follow-up support center. There he will advise her about housing, social affairs, education and healthcare. According to Mayor Zdenek Hřiba, this will help their integration and prevent possible conflicts.
Prague is the first region to establish a follow-up assistance center
The center is located in Vysočany, in the same building as the Regional Assistance Center for Refugees, which, however, offers assistance to new arrivals. “We have made a commitment to take care of the safety of the civilian population who had to flee the war in Ukraine. We must create an environment for refugees with children who have found refuge in our city so that they can fully participate in society,” wrote the mayor at the press conference Zdenek Hrib (Pirates). Prague is the first region ever to establish such a project.
According to Hřib, people come here who already have their visa and registration matters sorted out, and need help with some other problem, for example in the field of education or healthcare, housing. “We don’t want the creation of ghettos, we want to be able to ensure adaptation and integration so that conflicts do not arise from misunderstandings,” added Hřib. According to the mayor, an example is the involvement of Ukrainian children in Czech classes instead of creating only Ukrainian ones.
Vitaly Usaty, Chargé d’affaires of the Ukrainian Embassy, also thanked for the reception of Ukrainian refugees. “Most of them never planned to live in the Czech Republic or anywhere else outside Ukraine, but the cruelty and ruthlessness of the Russian occupiers who came to our country to destroy, murder and steal drove them out,” he said Shut up.
The center will be in full operation from January
“Since Monday, we have managed to receive fifty clients, which in two days in the pilot mode are not bad numbers at all,” center coordinator Michaela Márová. For the time being, they provide basic social and housing counseling, and from January they will be fully operational, provided by forty workers and ten interpreters.
As Márová stated, this is a unique collaboration between the public administration and the non-profit sector. They pass information on the operation of the center back to the municipality.
The cost is thirty million
The project is financed by UNICEF, which provided a package of 333 million crowns as part of the city’s long-term cooperation. Thirty million of this will go to the operation of the center. It should work until the end of next year.
The building in Vysočany was already lent to the city free of charge in April by the Central Group company, which also covers operating costs such as energy.