S2 E4: Fighting Corruption and Fostering Inclusion in the Czech Republic with Marketa Fišarová

For Episode Four of the EarthRights Podcast, we are in conversation with Marketa Fišarová, former Social Inclusion Officer in the Czech government.

When Mel first moved to Prague for her Masters, Marketa offered Mel a place to live and consequently showed her around the city and taught her about the Czech way of life. This laid the foundations for an international friendship, one that is quite uncommon among the majority of the nationalist Czech population.

Marketa tells us about the deeply rooted corruption within the Czech government and its ties with Russia, established when Czechoslovakia was a part of the Soviet Union. This issue is made worse by the monopoly over most mainstream media channels that the current Prime Minister, Andrej Babiš, holds. Marketa believes that a bottom up approach can help us fight against the corruption and systemic issues with community and inclusion.

At the time they lived together, Marketa was working as the Social Inclusion Officer within the Czech Government. Marketa tells us about some of the struggles she faced during her role; the pay gap causing people to move to the private sector, discrimination against already socially excluded families in the education system, and why bureaucracy and corruption are at the heart of these problems.

Marketa offering Mel a place to live is a real manifestation of her views, and now as a mother, Marketa tells us about her aims to teach her child a community way of life - one that supports the fight against climate change and lasting friendships.