Better communication is the key to less misunderstanding. We help employees in the public administration and security forces to improve their communication skills when working with foreigners from third countries. Thanks to our training, they can perceive some situations from a foreigner's perspective. And that helps to increase understanding.
• From March 1, 2024, to August 31, 2026, we plan to train a total of 800 people.
• Two-day workshop is accredited by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
• Slovo 21 has been working with officials since 2011. Since then, we have trained a total of 1,300 people.
• The workshop is intended for employees of the Police of the Czech Republic, the Foreign Police, the Municipal Police, the Fire Rescue Service, the Labor Office of the Czech Republic, OAMP, and the State Labor Inspection Office.
Why is it necessary to educate officials?
According to the Ministry of the Interior, by the end of 2023, there were 836,000 people from different cultural backgrounds in the Czech Republic. Sooner or later, all these people will come into contact with the Czech authorities. However, their employees often never received adequate education in intercultural and communication skills, which can have a negative impact on their work and their approach to foreigners. That's why we came up with the concept of a two-day interactive training, to make it easier for state and local government employees to work with foreigners. Our aim is to show the officials that sometimes the behavior of foreigners can be caused simply by cultural differences.
What does the training look like?
We do not want to educate civil servants about migration theoretically. Our focus is mainly on experiential and interactive activities, that put participants in the position that foreigners find themselves in ordinary practice. By switching roles, they have the opportunity to experience model situations through the eyes of migrants. At the same time, each training must be tailored to the participants, whose needs are different due to the nature of the jobs in question. They themselves are actively involved at the beginning of the workshop and their expectations shape the final content of each activity.
Guest-foreigner
Employees of the state administration and security forces can often have a distorted image of foreigners living in the Czech Republic, simply because they do not have the opportunity to meet and talk with foreigners outside their workplaces. That is why the so-called guest chair is part of the workshop. Thanks to it, the participants have the opportunity to experience personal contact with a person who came to the Czech Republic as a foreigner and who shares what was difficult for him/her in the country, what surprised him/her, pleasantly or not. The foreign guests we work with come from Ukraine, Russia, Mongolia, Vietnam, Syria and Belarus.
"Enhancing intercultural competences 2024-2026" is co-financed by the European Union.
