Prague, Jan 3 (CTK) – The new State Integration Programme (SIP) for refugees, with teaching of Czech, information on culture and democracy and help with housing, opened at the beginning of the year.
For this year, the programme will be sponsored with 200 million crowns, while 73 million crowns will be set aside from the state budget and the rest from EU money.
The Interior Ministry presumes that the Czech Republic can provide international protection to 2,000 foreigners.
The SIP is to facilitate the process of integration of the people with international protection in the Czech Republic.
Apart from the teaching of Czech, it will focus on the help on the labour market, in housing, education of children and retraining.
The integration will have two basic stages. First, a stay in the integration asylum centers for mostly 12 and maximally 18 months along with intensive teaching of Czech and a preparation for future life in the Czech Republic.
Second, the integration in the municipalities itself ensured by the general provider of integration services with the use of offers of jobs and housing from employers, local town halls, churches, individuals, NGOs and other groups.
Caritas of the Czech Republic should be the general provider of integration services in 2016. A tender will be launched for a new, longer period as of 2017.
Last year, the Czech Republic pledged to accept 400 refugees from outside the EU and 1100 within relocation from Italy and Greece.
Based on a European decision, Prague is to accept another 1591 migrants.
($1=24.728 crowns)
