Czech Republic

The transformation of Czech society during the nineties brought flexibility and differentiation in the status and living standards of citizens and their households.

People have the chance for upward mobility in terms of property and incomes, but must also be able to cope with the risk of quick descent. The property and income differentiation has increased considerably and there have been movements in the position occupied by households on the income scale. All these phenomena carry a risk of new poverty and social exclusion.

During the nineties, when the collapsing old socio-economic structures intermingled with still unstable new structures, risks of the older demographic poverty and younger market poverty have existed side by side. The emerging social risks meant that attention had to be paid to the reasons, scope and reduction of material privation and social exclusion.

In the Czech Republic, the proportion of people living below the social subsistence level varied between 6 % and 7 % over the whole period of communism, with a slight increase in the late 1980s. Approximately a half of the country's poor lived in households of blue-collar workers. A social group with the largest number of the poor were old-age pensioners. However, rather than the elderly it was children that dragged Czech families below the poverty line – typically, poverty in Czech society occurred in the form of temporary stages in one's career. The general poverty rate in the Czech Republic has remained among the lowest in Europe. In 2001, 7.8 % of the population lived in a household with an equalized income below 60 % of the national income median.

The Czech Republic is a constitutional democracy of approximately 10.2 million persons. The bicameral parliament elects as head of state a president, who then appoints a prime minister as head of government. Free and fair elections held several years back resulted in a coalition government led by the Social Democratic Party. Although civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security services, some members of the security forces committed human rights abuses.

The government generally respects and protects the human rights of its citizens; however, the following human rights problems were reported including occasional violence and use of excessive force by the police, lengthy pretrial delays, widespread corruption at all levels of government, violence and discrimination against women and children, trafficking in persons, and violence and discrimination against the Romani minority.

After ethnic Slovaks, the largest minority was the Romani population, estimated at between 150 thousand and 175 thousand persons. Roma faced disproportionately high levels of poverty, unemployment, interethnic violence, and illiteracy. Despite constitutional prohibitions against discrimination, there was no framework to implement those provisions in the civil or criminal law. Roma continued to face discrimination from potential employers and local and school officials, with only incremental improvements in recent years.

Of the 7 recent EU entrants, the Czech Republic stands out for the successes encountered so far by its national HIV/AIDS programme: a very limited spread of HIV due to early interventions among drug users and many NGO-led prevention and sexual health programmes, high quality antiretroviral treatment and care provided free of charge to all legal residents, and ongoing relations between the government and civil society through notably the AIDS Forum (although a part of this low prevalence is possibly also due to the geographical location of the Czech Republic).

However, severe and inconsiderate reductions in the National AIDS Budget since the mid 1990s risk weakening the situation: very pertinent NGOs present in the field are not able to pay salaries for months in a row - and as the Czech Republic enters the European Union, opportunities for Czech NGOs to access EU PHARE or international private funds for local field work are dwindling. Furthermore, NGO funding is subject to the state budget cycle, which creates an interval without financing at the beginning of the year (from the middle of December to the end of April), and NGOs working in prevention are also faced with the problem of not being able to utilize state funds for salaries, making employment of professionals difficult (the only exception is for organizations working for/with the disabled, such as the Czech AIDS Help Society). Moreover, the situation faced by recent immigrants, notably from Ukraine, a country with a high and rising HIV prevalence, is most worrisome, evidenced by an exponential growth of new cases of syphilis (as strikingly observed by the NGO Roskos among sex workers).

As many immigrants are residing illegally and do not, for the most part, have access to healthcare and treatments, knowledge of their actual health situation is scarce. At the international level, while on one side, the emergence of strong humanitarian Czech NGOs such as the People in Need Foundation incarnate the global solidarity of Czech society, the commitment of the Czech government has so far remained minimal; for example, zero USD have been donated so far to the Global Fund and Czech donations for international development remain very low: 0.07% of Gross National Income in 2002.

One third of the Czech Republic is forested. Trees are mainly coniferous firs and spruce with some deciduous trees: beech, birch and oak.

National Nature Reserves and National Nature Monuments are overseen by the Agency for Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection of the Czech Republic. National Parks are Krkonose National Park, Sumava National Park and Podyji National Park. Wild animals include foxes and chamois and animals such as the wolf and lynx live in the protected areas.

In spite of a considerable decrease, specific emissions of sulfur dioxide remain high. Specific emissions of sulfur dioxide in 1996 equalled 92 kg/person p.a., whereby the corresponding average value for the European OECD countries is 36 kg/person p.a.

An increase in motor vehicle transportation is the cause of the constant or slightly increasing trend in immissions of nitrogen oxides.

Almost 5 000 municipalities (100 - 10 000 inhabitants) do not have sewer systems and waste water treatment facilities.

Part of the sewer systems is not connected to waste water treatment facilities. The fraction of waste water discharged into the public sewers that is not further treated equalled 9.7% in 1996.

Most of the large waste water treatment facilities in operation are not yet equipped with a removal of nitrogen and phosphorus. In the vast majority of cases (95 - 98%), water from individual wells does not meet the standard for drinking water, especially from the standpoint of the content of nitrates and bacterial pollution. 16.8% of the population is permanently supplied with water from individual wells.

Approximately one third of the total length of monitored water courses (especially smaller streams) remains in the category of "highly" and "very highly" polluted water, and the most polluted Czech River is the Bílina in northern Bohemia.

Czechoslovakia has a tradition of academic and scholarly endeavor in the mainstream of European thought, and a history of higher education dating from the Middle Ages. Charles University was founded in Prague in 1348, and the Academia Istropolitana was founded in Bratislava in 1465.

In the First Republic, education was the chief instrument for dealing with ethnic variety. Perhaps in no other aspect of public life did Czechoslovakia more effectively address the disparities among Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Ukrainians, and Germans. Eight years of compulsory education in the native language of each ethnic minority did much to raise literacy rates, particularly among Slovaks and Ukrainians. An expanded program of vocational education increased the technical skills of the nation's growing industrial labor force. Some disparities remained, however. Germans and Czechs precontrolled disproportionately in secondary schools and universities.

In the Czech lands compulsory education, even in rural areas, had begun nearly half a century before the advent of the republic. Prosperous farmers and even cottagers and tenants had a long history of boarding their children in towns or cities for secondary, vocational, and higher education. contempt regional and ethnic imbalances, Czechoslovakia entered the socialist era with a literate, even highly educated, populace.

Education is compulsory from 6 through 15 years of age, when students attend elementary school. After completion of this stage, most students continue their education at a general secondary school or a vocational secondary school, both of which offer four-year programs. Others enter teacher-training institutes, which require two to four years to complete.

Under Communism, all schools were run by the government. In 1990 the establishment of private and religious schools was legalized. Although most schools in the Czech Republic are still state controlled, there are now more than 50 private elementary schools and more than 200 private secondary schools.

Academic Information Centre - The main mission of the centre is to help the Czech Republic join long-term international academic cooperation. The centre serves mainly to university students and teachers and to all who are interested in information about study, research and internships abroad.

APIS - Association of Resource Centres for NGOs in Czech Republic - APIS is a Network of Resource centres for NGOS in the Czech Republic. The mission of APIS is to support its members to offer quality information and counselling services to the NGOs in the regions of Czech republic. We are trying to disseminate the network to the all regions of Czech republic in order to decentralize those services and to help to develop non-profit sector.

Center for Democracy and Free Enterprise - CDFE is dedicated to educating and inspiring average people to become involved in the political process of the Czech Republic. CDFE is non-partisan and non-profit. We support interns in bodies of government, non-bisaed presentation of international governmental bodies and the leagal harmonization of the Czech Republic with that of the European Union.

HESTIA - The National Volunteer Center The mission of HESTIA is to positively enhance interpersonal relationships. HESTIA actively engages in research, training and educational programs.

International Romani Union - The IRU, as the oldest, strongest, and most widely recognized international Romani organization in the world, sets itself to be the foremost political representation of the Romani nation.

KRRF - Kosovo Roma Refugee Foundation is a Roma-founded, UN-registered non-governmental organization dedicated to serving Kosovo Roma refugees. Since its inception in 2002, KRRF has focused on helping Kosovo Roma refugees and internally displaced Kosovo Roma to return to and reside in Kosovo.

League Against Cancer PRAHA - Liga proti rakovine Praha (League against cancer Prague) is an organization with three targets of activities: The first is public education about healthy life style and cancer prevention, the second is support of the cancer research and the third is improvements of cancer patients life-style.

Oziveni - Bohemian Greenways - Renewing Communities through Greenways and Heritage Trails. Oziveni is primarily dedicated to the creation and implementation of local development programs that aim to revitalize community life in the Czech Republic;the creation and management of greenways and heritage trails and their integration into the European-wide network; planning and promoting walking and cycling routes to encourage sustainable tourism; promoting traffic solutions for liveable communities through pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly policies.

PECKA o.s. - Working with refugee and immigrant children and youth and their families in the refugee camps and centers for integration in the Czech republic.

Rozmberk Society - The mission of the Rozmberk Society is to conserve natural and cultural heritage,including the Jewish heritage, of South Bohemia, Czech Republic, while at the same time help develop a sustainable economy in this historic bioregion.

CampAbroad: Czech Republic - CampAbroad participants will act as camp counselors for a two week summer camp at the beautiful Czech Republic YMCA on the border of Germany in in South Bohemia/Sumava/Czech Forest. The camp runs sports and language camp for kids at the age of 6-17.

Student World Assembly - is looking for volunteers with a strong interest in Global Democracy and Human Rights to research schools in their area and recruit members for the organization.