"In the book, the authors describe 11 selected projects that helped Romanies from socially excluded localities to integrate in the majority society.

"It is important that these are stories of concrete people," Zdenka Vanurova, the editor of the publication, said.

She said the authors' goal was to show a variety of methods of helping Romanies from excluded localities.

It is, for instance, the promotion of field social work, social consultancy, the establishment of various community centres and low-threshold facilities for children.

The European Union has established, jointly with the Czech Republic, a special programme for funding the projects for Romanies' integration in society. From this programme, Czech municipalities and non-profit organisations have been able to draw, mainly through the ESF, some 42 million euros as of last year until 2013.

The entire costs of the project can be covered from this programme.

The information about the possibilities for financing the Romany projects can be found on www.esfcr.cz.

During the national census in the Czech Republic in 2001, some 11,700 people declared themselves Romanies. However, according to estimates, about 250,000 Romanies live in the 10-million country, one-third of them living in excluded localities."