I have never seen greater poverty than in the Slovak Roma settlements. An IT guy moved there from Brno and teaches the children

None of this is new to Slovaks, but many Czechs do not realize what the Roma settlements there really look like. “When you get there, it is as if you had literally landed in an Indian slum,” says Martin Halík, describing his own experience when he came to one settlement in the Rimavská Sobota district in southern Slovakia. He is a software designer who owns a successful agency and has worked, or still works, for companies such as Kiwi, the flight-ticket company, Safetica, the cybersecurity company, and Groupon, the discount portal. He then decided to help the Roma. He has been doing it for the last eight years, and for a time he even moved into the Roma settlement itself. Together with his wife, he has already helped hundreds of people.

“My dream was to become a famous designer, earn a lot of money and give talks all over the world,” Halík tells CzechCrunch. His life took a somewhat different direction after he once found himself in a Roma settlement in the village of Klenovec. “Until then I had never seen greater poverty with my own eyes,” continues the thirty-one-year-old entrepreneur, who decided to help the families there.

So he has lived in Klenovec for eight years now. He says himself that from a Czech point of view it may not seem so, but the way of life of the Roma in Slovakia affects what happens here too. “If their social problems are not solved in Slovakia, they gradually move to the Czech Republic as well. The first Roma settlements are already appearing in the Ostrava region, and by moving to the Czech Republic they put a burden on the state.”

“But with help, the Roma can become a normally working workforce that supports either the Slovak economy, if they stay at home, or finds work in the Czech Republic, which helps too,” Halík believes. His activities, gathered under the non-profit organization Christian Roma Mission (KRM), are achieving remarkable results.

Read the rest of the article on the CzechCrunch website.

Full article at cc.cz →