Welcome to the OLD website of the Rozmberk Society

Dear visitors

This website is outdated, but still offers interesting information on projects and activities already completed.

We are now updating and completely renewing our site including site navigation and look. Hopefully we will be ready in the second week of March 2007. In the mean time, it is possible that some of the links are not working properly or pages are missing completely. Our apologies for that.

For recent developments and projects, visit also our (joined) project websites:

Emigration history website, a joined website on the results of an EU Culture 2000 project on historic emigration to America

Ecomuseum Ruze, a website about highlights of the region and interesting places and events for visitors. The website was build as a part of our last project on regional development and cultural heritage conservation. Although in Czech, the pictures give a nice view of the region and some of our traditional craft workshops.

Migration and Intercultural Relations, the website of a EU-funded multi-country education project on historic and contemporary migration.

Please also visit Czech Friends, the website of the Friends of the Rozmberk Society Inc, an American charity established to support the Rozmberk Society and preserve the shared Czech-American emigration and settler's history.

Old Homepage

The Rozmberk Society is Czech tax-exempt public benefit corporation. The Society operates mainly within the Mircro-region Ruze and the adjacent Trebon Biosphere Reserve, both part of the former Rozmberk Domains in the rural South Bohemian fishpond area in the Czech Republic (See map). The mission of the Society is to conserve the natural and cultural heritage in this rural region and help realize a sustainable re-development of the region's dwindling economy. Organizing community activities, fighting unemployment and helping the transition to a free, open and democratic society on a local and regional level are an important part of all our activities.

Kojakovice Peasant Museum and Information Center

The Society's multi-functional Center in the protected village of Kojakovice. The Center provides information for locals and visitors about the region and its history and about conservation of nature and cultural heritage. Computers with Internet access are part of the information service and are also used to familiarize people, in particular the local children, with modern information technology. 

The Museum displays a permanent exhibition on how common people lived and worked in the period 1840-1914. The marked emigration of people from this region to America played an important role in village life of that time; emigration was a scary, but hopeful alternative to improve the lives of the immigrants and their offspring. This historic emigration forms part of the permanent exhibition. Family history and migration, both historic and contemporary, is also topic of the international educational EU Comenius 3 Thematic Network project "Migration and Intercultural Relations", of which the Society is the Czech initiator.
 

Incubator for Traditional Crafts: helping young companies in old crafts

Helping create new jobs, establish small companies, and involving low-chance youngsters are key objectives in the re-development of rural areas. The Society's Craft Incubator project focuses on helping young people to start companies in traditional crafts by providing help with legal and administrative problems, fund raising and marketing. Local and micro-regional authorities, and labor offices endorse and actively support this approach. The project is now in its starting phase; the target is to have 3-5 new companies active within the incubator this year.

Ecomuseum Ruze

Establishing the Ecomuseum Ruze is a joint activity of the Society and its regional partners. The Ecomuseum was initiated within the framework of the International Visegrad Fund Project ”Establishing a Visegrad network of Eco-museums for restoring and maintaining living heritage at the local level in Central Europe”, in cooperation with the Environmental partnership-Nadace Partnerstvi. The planned Ecomuseum envisions drawing attention to our region by creating a “museum without walls”. Nature, culture, and history are interpreted in situ, involving local communities and using stories, sites, trails, monuments and other symbols. The key is presenting the regional heritage as a living, dynamic process relating to the continuously changing relationship between human communities and their surroundings. Our Ecomuseum will highlight historical workshops and working places, and other sites of high natural or cultural heritage value in the landscape. The Ecomuseum is also part of the Greenways-Zeleny stezky program

EU Projects

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This page was updated in February  2004