As the homelessness crisis in the Czech Republic continues, some homeless people are working as tour guides. Sex worker Lada has become a successful guide at the age of 55. Thanks to the job, she is no longer homeless.
Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00This is Lada. She spent many years as a homeless drug addict and sex worker.
00:05Now, at the age of 55, she takes tourists on a tour of Prague's darker corners and tells her story,
00:12talking about her past drug addiction, relationships, dreams and misadventures.
00:17Her tour begins at UhelnĂ˝ Tuch, a square in the center of Prague that was once famous for prostitution
00:23and where Lada also worked as a sex worker.
00:27I went to the restaurant and I was 4 years old in the street.
00:32Where I had food, I also said yesterday,
00:34where I had food from Alberta, where I had food every evening.
00:39And I went to the main street or to Nadej,
00:43through the street, for free.
00:46Or to the camaraderie.
00:47I started with the prostitution for a communist.
00:50I met with a girl who was rich,
00:53and she asked me, she said,
00:55I wanted to do the same thing.
00:57So, we were able to do the same thing.
00:59And then we worked here,
01:00at Perlov street.
01:01According to the OECD,
01:03more than 100,000 people in the Czech Republic are homeless.
01:06Since 2012, Prague-based social organization Pragueulich has been helping homeless people rehabilitate in society by employing them as tour guides.
01:15Teresa JureÄŤkova, founder and CEO of Pragueulich, says the idea behind the tours is to give tourists the chance to hear the guides' stories.
01:24So far, about 180,000 people have taken tours with homeless guides employed by Pragueulich.
01:30We saw that there is a really big problem of homelessness.
01:33A lot of services just provide basic service to homeless people.
01:37But there was nothing to really give homeless people job opportunities, raising their self-esteem.
01:44What we are trying to do since the beginning is change the stereotypes associated with homelessness.
01:50So, we are here to share these stories of our people.
01:53And we hope that through these stories and through this personal experience,
01:57people are really moved.
01:59They will have different choices.
02:02They will be more informed.
02:04Lada has had a difficult life.
02:07She gave birth to a boy before she turned 18.
02:09She then went to Prague, leaving her three-month-old baby with her mother.
02:13In Prague, she started out as a waitress and later worked as a prostitute.
02:17It was here that she discovered she is a lesbian.
02:20After the communist regime in what was then Czechoslovakia collapsed,
02:24she left for Germany, where she began taking drugs.
02:27That's when her drug and gambling addiction took off,
02:30and her life took one ugly turn after another.
02:33Lada was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder
02:36and has been in a psychiatric facility fifteen times.
02:39She keeps her condition under control with medication.
02:42In addition to working as a tour guide,
02:44she still works as a sex worker in Prague.
02:47But she's not homeless anymore.
02:50I have to be in normal work.
02:52I don't care about it.
02:54It depends on the drugs on the 30th of December,
02:57so it was written on me.
02:58And it's like,
02:59I don't care about it.
03:00I don't care about it.
03:01It's a risk.
03:03I started to live completely different.
03:05I tried to go to work.
03:07I was in Prague like a night's return,
03:10not like a driver.
03:11I still look at work.
03:12It's a problem for me.
03:13What's wrong with my life is that I'm going to go to the Karlak.
03:16I'm completely fine.
03:17Organizations working for the homeless say
03:20that the number of people sleeping on the streets in Prague
03:23has increased in recent years due to the economic crisis.
03:26Shelters and housing facilities for the homeless are full.
03:29The Czech government and NGOs are looking for solutions to address the problem.
03:34Lada's story stands out as an example of how empowering the homeless
03:38can change their lives and mitigate the problem.
03:41in India.
03:42In the UK,
03:43in the UK,
03:44the government and NGOs are looking for sexual abuse.
03:45It's very complex.
03:46In other words,
03:47you won't
03:53go to the borderline driving the most of the borderline driver.