Pragulic Project to Show Street Prague

The homeless, the thieves, the druggies - the real life of Prague streets at night is the aim of a new social enterprise, Pragulic, offering tours that let you see the city through the eyes of the people that know the underbelly of the city.
These tours are the brainchild of three young students from Prague?s Faculty of Humanities - Tereza Jurečkov?, Katarina Chalupkov? and Ondřej Kl?gl. The project got a big boost of confidence this spring, as well as small starting capital ? when it won the community vote as one of five Czech projects competing for the Social Impact Award. Tickets for the tour go for 200 crowns, while there are discounts for students and seniors. Guides, all of whom have experienced life on the streets, receive half of the amount earned on any given night.
Neither the founders of Pragulic nor the guides think that they can drastically change life for the homeless in Prague but through the tours they do hope they can at least change a few people?s preconceptions, drawing some attention to issues that otherwise are often ?quite happily? swept under the rug.
?Of course you see homeless people on the street who are lying there drunk with a bottle of wine. But there are also people among them on the streets who are trying, who you wouldn?t even immediately recognize as homeless. Some are just trying to survive but are too old, for example, to get a job. The bureau says ?Fine, you have an education.? But what can you do if you?re 50 or 55?? asks Jose, one of the guides.
According to official figures, there are somewhere between two and four thousand homeless people living in Prague, but in reality the estimate might reach as much as 15 thousand: most are not officially registered.