Center for Integration of Foreigners celebrates 20 years!

The non-profit organization Center for Integration of Foreigners (CIC) is  20 years old this year. Let’s celebrate it together at a charity concert on June 15, 2023 at the  Vinohradský pivovar with Kadé chim and Pohřební kapela. 

With the motto “Helping immigrants to become our fellow citizens”, CIC began providing  integration services for foreigners in 2003. At first it was social counselling, but gradually other  services started to follow the needs of the clients. Today, in addition to topics such as  residency status and social security, CIC helps clients, for example, with joining the labour  market, children and teenagers with entering the school system, and expectant mothers with  preparing for childbirth and subsequent health care in Czech hospitals. The connection with  the volunteer programme helps to establish contacts between foreigners and the Czech  majority, learning local customs and communicating in Czech.  

Knowledge of the language is of course an important part of integration into society. In the  CIC courses, Czech is taught through a low-threshold methodology, which allows all those  interested to participate, regardless of their mother tongue. Based on many years of  experience, the CIC team of lecturers and methodology specialists also creates original  textbooks – most recently, for example, the set of materials Česky raz dva, which was created  in response to the arrival of a large number of Ukrainian pupils and distributed to schools as  part of the Učebnice pro Ukrajinu project. 

“We are glad that we have been part of the process of helping foreigners in the Czech Republic  for 20 years. We cordially invite you to our birthday celebration – a charity concert at the  Vinohradský pivovar on June 15th at 7:00 pm,” says Anna Marie Vinařická, director of the  organization. Proceeds from the benefit concert will go to support services and activities for  CIC clients.