Best Practices
Implementing Integration Activities
[Municipal Library in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic]"As part of multicultural education, we want to organize a survey in order to assess the level of awareness about foreigners in the region and the attitude of students and teachers towards the issue. We would like to follow up with a project designed for students and entitled “Bring Foreigners to the Library and Show Them Around.” By doing so, we hope to get a better understanding of what library services foreigners need and consider useful. Twice a year, we would like to organize Days of National Cultures as part of our efforts in the cultural sphere. On 3-7 September, we hosted Days of Jewish Culture in cooperation with the Jewish Community featuring lectures, an exhibition entitled “Jewish Traditions and Customs,” music performances and a public debate about Judaism. Days of Slovak Culture are planned for the second half of the year. Czech language courses for foreigners, scheduled to start in January 2007, are to become our crucial integration activity. We are now in the phase of measuring interest on the part of foreigners and hope to benefit from cooperation with the Organization for Aid to Refugees which is scheduled to start working in Karlovy Vary in November 2006. We are looking for the right instructor and acquiring the right literature. We would like to implement other activities in cooperation with elementary schools with foreign students. Our aim is to organize collective readings and debates about fairytales and literature of individual nations. Children of foreigners integrate quickly and because their parents often do not speak Czech, they serve as their interpreters. For this reason, it seems important to establish contact with adults through children. We would also like to expand our services by adding to our collection books in various foreign languages, in particular Slovak and Russian, but also Vietnamese, if possible. The Regional Library has an information centre where foreigners can seek advice regarding Czech authorities and look at employment offers of the local job centre."
Source: Libraries as Gateways to the Integration of Immigrants in the EU (MKC Prague)
CONTACT
Regional Library in Karlovy Vary
Závodní 378/84, 360 06 Karlovy Vary
Czech Republic
