Completed projects
IOM Counter Trafficking Campaign in the Czech Republic
November 2007-January 2008
The campaign, organized by the International Organization of Migration (IOM) Prague in co-operation with the Ministry of Interior, aimed to raise awareness to the target group of clients of prostitution and larger public traveling from the UK to the Czech Republic about the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation purposes. It followed in the rise of two other successful projects which ran in 2005 and 2006, designed as preparatory for a country-wide preventive counter-trafficking campaign targeting the demand for sexual services.
With the British Embassy’s support, this important issue was publicised through a unique and effective advertising campaign on board of Czech Airlines planes flying between the UK and the Czech Republic in their in-flight Review magazine. The ‘Don’t be afraid to say it for her’ campaign, which had the potential to address an approximate 950,000 passengers who were transported over the three month period, aimed to highlight that trafficking women really exists, that signs of trafficking are not easily recognisable and that clients can help trafficked women anonymously, safely and effectively.
For more information; www.say-it.cz Telephone hotlines set up by IOM's partners La Strada and Caritas (+ 420 605 988 566 or + 420 222 717 171).
Improving Child Protection in an Enlarged EU’ Seminar
24th-25th June 2008
The seminar, which was organized in co-operation with the Ministry of Interior from the 24th-25th June 2008, aimed to share UK extensive practice in the field of child protection and co-ordination activities as part of efforts to prepare EU policy for an EU-wide sex offenders register.
Julian Norris, Group Leader for Offender Management UK and Caroline Logue, Education Group UK coordinator joined a series of British and Czech experts that contributed to a discussion at the Interior Ministry of the Czech Republic assessing issues on internet protection, child protection in the UK and the use of legal tools such as Child Sex Offender Register abroad. This was followed by a CEOP training program in the afternoon aimed at raising awareness to NGOs, police, journalists and the general public especially children and their parents and teachers on risk assessment, community based management tools and limiting the risk of UK sex offenders who travel abroad.
Summer Consular Campaign
The Consular Section of the British Embassy in Prague launched a ‘Welcome to the Czech Republic’ campaign over the summer 2008 in order to promote responsible tourism to British visitors who travel to the Czech Republic. Through a series of advertisements and leaflets, the campaign aimed at increasing awareness about the potential problems they may encounter whilst traveling in the Czech Republic, as well as offering basic advice on looking after oneself and ones belongings, using public transport, Prague’s vice industry and promoting what the Embassy can do to help if a problem arises.
Advertising Campaign PDF Link: http://www.aaataxi.cz/download/intaxi_web04.pdf Page 34
Judicial Reform Conference
16th September 2008
The British Embassy supported a conference at the CEELI Institute on September 16, 2008 the in cooperation with the American Embassy and Ministry of Justice of the Czech Republic entitled "Judicial Reform: Toward an Accountable Society". The conference aimed to promote constructive discussion on judicial reform as a contribution to the country's reform efforts, with the goal of promoting the importance of an independent but accountable judiciary and the benefits of judicial reform, as well as identify practical ways to incorporate best practices, as discussed at the conference, within the Czech legal and legislative framework
The conference brought together 80 leaders of the Czech Republic’s government, legal, academic, media and business sectors as well as the diplomatic community who engaged in a lively discussion on various aspects of independence of the judiciary and the need for a separation between the executive and judicial branches as well as on the key role public trust plays in the credibility and viability of the judiciary. The conference clearly indicated how much interest exists in the judiciary to become a fair and transparent pillar of Czech democracy.
Carbon Capture and Storage (CSS) Study Visit to London
28th-29th November 2007
In November 2007, The British Embassy enabled Czech CCS experts to attend a two day seminar in Kingsway Hall Hotel, London organised by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, enabling them to meet their opposite numbers, compare the situation in both countries and find ways of possible co-operation.
Across the world, governments are increasingly recognising the potential of Carbon Capture & Storage as a mechanism for reducing CO2 emissions and the conference brought together a speaker panel of exceptional quality to examine, in the round, the prospects for the development of CCS on a commercial scale. It included sessions on the policy context, the economics of commercial scale CCS, the maturity of CCS technologies, developments in Europe, CCS in the developing world and establishing a regulatory framework for CCS.
Ministry of Environment Climate Change Conference
31st October 2008
The British Embassy supported a key pre-presidency climate change conference on the 31st October 2008 in the Congress Hall of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. The conference, which was organised by the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic, covered a contemporary political context of international and national climate change issues to help outline the framework for an agreement on future limitations of greenhouse gasses emissions and a successor to the Kyoto protocol, due to expire in 2012.
It was attended by principal political and environmental figures across the 27 EU Member states, including Martin Bursík, the Czech environment minister, Mr. Stavros Dimas, the European Commissioner for Environment and contributions by British BBC Journalist Roger Harrabin.
Local Authority Study Visit to Woking
The British Embassy organised a study visit to Woking in England for 15 Czech councillors. The visit illustrated how low carbon principles could be incorporated into the day to day running of a town with the aim of inspiring participants to launch similar projects in their own towns back in the Czech Republic. During the three-day visit the participants met representatives of Woking and were taken on a tour of the Borough’s renewable and sustainable energy project (its Town Centre Combined Heat and Power energy station, which uses hybrolights) and they also visited BedZed, the largest eco-village in the UK.
Prague Student Summit
6-9th March 2009
The Prague Student Summit, held between March 6-9th 2009, was a unique educational project organized by the Association of International Affairs (AMO) and backed by the British Embassy in Prague, that allowed more than 400 high school and college students across the Czech Republic to come together to simulate the meetings of three key international organizations – the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. By role-playing diplomatic representatives of various states, the students had the opportunity to look into the world of diplomacy and international relations and attempt to resolve current problems from various parts of the world.
Simon Martin, Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy Prague addressed the students.
Links to AMO Student Summit Website: http://www.studentsummit.cz/en/student_summit/about_summit/prague_student_summit\
Student Model of NATO
The British Embassy Prague was a main partner in the Student Model of NATO, which allowed high school students from all across the Czech Republic to come together to represent 26 NATO member countries. Five pre-event preparatory workshops ran between November 2008 to March 2009 and ranged in topics from the History of the Alliance and the Transformation of Czech Army in relation to joining NATO through to Missle Defence, and by the time the actual Student Summit began on March 28th, many of the delegates were able to consult their policies with the actual diplomats of the NATO member states they were to represent. The main objective of the project was to raise awareness among the Czech students to the work of NATO and to deepen their knowledge of current security issues.
Prague Transatlantic Talks- NATO at Sixty
On February 12th, The Association of International Affairs (AMO) commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of NATO by organizing a unique panel discussion between international experts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague. The panel, which included Michael Howard, Member of the British House of Commons, provided an impartial and independent environment for an interaction between distinguished, diplomatic, military and academic personalities on the future perspective of the Alliance. Topics ranging from ‘NATO vs. ESDP: Meaningful Synergy or Meaningless Competition’, ‘NATO in 2009,: Testing the Commitments of its Members’ and ‘NATO at Sixty: Where do we go?’ were covered with the objective of facilitating an open discussion on where NATO stands and where it is heading sixty years after its foundation
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Apart from the projects mentioned above, the Embassy also supports various smaller projects focused on the Millennium Development Goals.
Leaflet of an IOM campaign against trafficking in human beings.