“Omamas” are kick-starting the education of poor Czech children and helping families escape the cycle of poverty. From Okraj.
“What’s my name? Yes, that’s right – Erika. Or you can call me O-ma-ma,” Erika Bihariova slowly tells the twins Zdenek and Viktor. They are sitting together on a green mat in a house in the Czech city of Bohumin and today, just as every week, they ring a bell to start the next lesson in the Omama program.
Erika/Omama helps the youngest children in Bohumin and neighboring Orlova to develop key skills that can positively influence their future lives. She herself grew up in poverty, raised two children, and has had several careers, from social worker to working in the catering industry. Now, she visits mothers in the Roma community, helping them raise their children and advising them on how to talk them through difficult situations or support their abilities, from birth to age three.
Children who are born into families affected by poverty and grow up in excluded localities have significantly more difficult conditions from the start. Poverty creates stress that negatively affects brain development at an early age, which affects such youngsters’ success at school or work in the future.
Omama can help families break the cycle of generational poverty and escape exclusion through education and development at an early age, according to Svatava Placha, the head of Cesta von CZ, the organization which introduced Omama in several Czech towns in 2022, inspired by the promising results by Cesta von’s parent organization in Slovakia. A 2022 study of the Slovak program, co-authored by researchers from Oxford University in the scientific journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, reported preliminary results on the neurological development of two-year-old children from poor Romani families who were involved in Omama. The researchers found that they had significantly better cognitive skills, motor skills, and language abilities than children from Romani settlements who did not encounter Omama.
“One grandmother told me that our service reminds her of the midwives who used to come to families after the birth and teach mothers how to care for their babies. What we do has a similar meaning for them,” Omama Erika recounts.
No Time for Reading
“Cesta von” means “the way out” in Slovak. The program’s success in Slovakia inspired the organization’s Czech branch to expand it into Czechia. So far, it operates only in the Ostrava conglomeration in the northeast corner of the Czech Republic, in Ostrava itself and four satellite towns. Cesta von CZ employs six women who work with almost a hundred children.
When Erika visits a client’s home, she first wants to know what is new with the children. Are they healthy? Do they need anything? Are they trying new things? “A child might start holding a toy or babbling, but the mother might not even realize that it’s a change that makes a difference,” she explains.
For lessons to be effective, it’s important to keep the household as quiet as possible. When Omama comes to a family where there are multiple siblings, multiple generations living together, and often other relatives, this is sometimes challenging to achieve. Erika typically goes to see her mothers in the morning when the men are at work and the older children are at school, so she can attend to the mothers and the youngest kids.
But noise and chaos are not the biggest obstacles. The “Omamas” routinely visit families living below the poverty line. According to Erika, these parents don’t have time to give their children attention beyond the basic needs – like reading them a story.
“They are dealing with other things, finding money, something to eat, or constantly moving from place to place. Their biggest obstacle is poverty and the resulting housing problems. Often they do not know how to manage and live from day to day, here and now,” she says.
A Supportive Environment is Key
Experts say the first thousand days after a child’s conception are crucial for newborns and toddlers, when the brain develops most rapidly and the skills that determine their future development are formed. Stress, trauma, poverty, or violence during this time can have long-term negative effects on a child’s health. Neglecting this period often leads to lower achievement in education, work, and other areas of life.
“As a result of the environment they are born into and grow up in, these children fall behind others. And it’s not that they don’t have potential. It’s their environment that is the problem,” says Katerina Sirotkova, the director of Early Care Platform, a Prague organization that supports services for children at risk.
According to Sirotkova, these fundamental problems cannot be solved except in a systemic way. “If a family does not have a roof over their head, heat, or a safe environment, raising and playing with the child will simply not be a priority. This is perfectly logical. We will never get the results we want if these basic things are not in order,” she says.
“Family policy in the Czech Republic focuses mainly on financial assistance, such as maternity and parental leave allowances. But key support in the area of working with children or coping with difficult situations is lacking. Families who lack parenting role models often remain out of reach of help and we ‘see’ them only later in kindergarten or school, when it is difficult to change anything,” Sirotkova says. And there are few subsidized services for preschool children, such as daycare or playgroups, so poor families can’t access them.
She praises the Omama program for its hands-on approach: “Through regular contact and practical support it helps families from excluded localities to create a solid foundation for the healthy development of their children.
“Such families need a role model, someone to guide them. And when that works, the children then transition smoothly into kindergarten,” Sirotkova says.
In addition to poverty or lack of awareness, cultural habits also put limits on the services Omama can provide. In some families, fathers are hardly involved in the upbringing of their children. Childcare rests solely with the mother, so men usually do not participate in the lessons. For this and other reasons, all the Omamas are women. According to Svatava Placha, many fathers would be reluctant to let another man into their homes. For Sirotkova, there is no point in trying to change this, instead the service should be adapted to the reality. “It would be a mistake to try to raise everyone according to one template,” she comments. The basic mechanisms, she says, are the same everywhere, regardless of custom: every child needs to feel safe and have an adult to provide a stable point of reference.
The Family Sweatshop
The house in Bohumin is noisy. Zdenek and Viktor laugh, sometimes they tumble over each other, sometimes they pretend to be gorillas, a skill they learned in the last lesson, or they want to high-five me as I watch them during activities with their Omama. “They like you,” says their mother, Vendula Mirgova.
She was skeptical about the program at first. She knew Erika and had heard from her about how Omama worked, and eventually decided to try the program to see if it could help one of her sons. “Viktor was fine, but Zdenek wasn’t talking at all. That’s changed, so I’m glad,” she says. She has already recommended Omama to other friends.
Erika doesn’t let the chaos in the room throw her off. Always calm, she guides the two brothers’ activity and draws their attention to the next part of the lesson, whether it be playing with toy cars or fitting blocks into the right molds.
It is through these seemingly insignificant activities that the children strengthen their fine and gross motor skills as well as their language habits and abilities, which are often lacking.
Family size makes a big difference in the families she regularly visits.
“With first-time mothers there is more room to teach them something, to show them what they can do better. But if a mom already has three, four, or more children, she deals with everything automatically. She focuses mainly on the basic needs of the children that she already has experience with and thinks less about their development,” Erika says.
“I liken it to a sweatshop – everything is automated to make it work.”
Miroslav Klempar, the head of Awen Amenca, a Romani educational NGO in Ostrava, confirms this pattern of child rearing, saying, “There is a persistent impression that when a child is born he or she is deaf and blind, that only gradually does he or she begin to see and hear. Or that they are too young to learn, that they can only learn at school.”
He says that one reason the Omama system is important is that it shows parents that even what they have at home can be used as educational material, so they don’t have to buy toys that are often expensive.
By Roma Women for Roma Women
The Omama program has already collected several awards. In 2019, Slovakia’s Cesta von won a prestigious SozialMarie award for social innovation. This prize is awarded annually by the Austrian Unruhe Foundation to 15 organizations that tackle pressing social challenges in Central and Eastern Europe. The Czech version of Omama was recognized last year with an award from the Social Responsibility Organization, a Czech NGO that publicizes progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
In Czechia, Omama is not yet a registered social service. The program operates thanks to contributions and grants from various foundations and donors. Cesta von CZ is also supported by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs within the EU-funded Employment Plus program. The ministry appreciates Omama’s positive impact on boosting parents’ competences and children’s development, spokesman Jakub Augusta says.
“The help does not come from outside, but from friends and people close [to the families] who have their own experience with the same situation,” Augusta says.
The service has a much larger base in Slovakia, where it has been operating for six years, mainly in Romani settlements, employing 50 Omamas and 25 mentors in 35 communities. Around a thousand children have been through the program there.
Cesta von’s goal in both countries is for Roma mothers to pass on their experiences to their peers. Before starting their jobs, the Omamas must attend a series of training sessions where they learn about generational poverty, the psychomotor development of children, and proper care of babies. The women involved should be over 30 and have experience in raising children, so that families trust them.
“We look for women who are personalities in the locality, or if we have references on her from our Omamas or from other local organizations. We look at the relationships she has in the community and whether families trust her enough to invite her into their homes,” Placha says.
I Lived As They Do
According to Omama Erika, some mothers at first thought she would watch their children and they could go about their business. But as she says, she understands because she spent her youth in a poor environment.
“I lived like many of them, and I know what that life is about. We washed in the bathtub for a year, I was pregnant at the time, we couldn’t afford a water heater or a washing machine, so I did the laundry by hand. It took my husband and me a while to build something. When families can’t afford bread, [formula], or diapers, I recognize it,” she says.
Still, she often finds the work challenging on a deeper level. “When a hungry child comes to your lesson, you hear his stomach growling, you can’t ask the mother to devote herself to the lesson now that she has nothing to feed him. That’s really hard.”
This is also why every Omama has a mentor with whom she not only talks over the day-to-day work but also shares with her what she has experienced or what is bothering her. “They have a close relationship with each other and mentoring also serves as a kind of psychological hygiene. We leave space in the meetings for sharing and dealing with difficult situations,” Placha explains.
After each session, the Omamas make time to talk with the parents and learn more about the family’s current situation. If they have any problems, she tries to connect them with other organizations or offers advice based on her own experience.
“That’s great, because sometimes these families lack that knowledge,” believes Miroslav Klempar of Awen Amenca. He notes that Omamas sometimes even deliver nutritional food or help families find a pediatrician.
From Tutor to Friend
The Omama program focuses on positive motivation and does not evaluate parents. “The key is to be a role model. When a worker comes into the home and sees a baby lying on the floor and the mother is talking to the baby from a high place because she is sitting on a chair, she herself will sit on the floor with the baby. She doesn’t come and say, ‘You should sit on the floor.’ She just shows it by example and invites her – ‘You come too.’ The parent naturally learns by doing this,” Early Care Platform’s Katerina Sirotkova says.
That’s probably why Erika has managed to gain the trust of her clients and why most weeks, she is busy giving lessons. Each Omama makes weekly visits to some 15 or 20 families.
Five sessions are enough for parents to see the impact the program has on their child, Placha says. And when they see the results, they want to continue. Once a quarter, participating families meet at the club and at community events such as a summer send-off or a Christmas afternoon gathering. As Placha puts it, “The events serve to strengthen the community, empower Omamas in the local area, and build relationships with other families.”
Erika recalls that some of her clients were suspicious at first and let her in more out of politeness than real interest. But after a few sessions, when they saw that their child was enjoying the Omama’s visits and was learning something new, they changed their attitude.
Over time, some clients have become her friends, writing her when something is going on or when they just want inspiration on what to cook for lunch. These are the moments that prove to Erica that her work is meaningful and why she wants to continue it despite the occasional difficulties.
Jan Zabka is the co-founder of Okraj, a startup newsroom providing local news for the Moravian-Silesian region, where this article first appeared. It was produced as part of a Transitions initiative in support of solutions journalism.
