Although our current activities for clients are very beneficial, they are often not enough to lead to a significant improvement in the situation of people who are long-term unemployed. The key factor for improvement is obtaining a stable income - permanent employment. That's why we created a concept that will gradually help unemployed people to find employment in the labor market.

In April we started a project called "DuK support for employment". The goal of the project is to increase the chances of people in need for their self-realization and to support their integration into society. The project will last for 20 months and we are implementing it in cooperation with the Family Center Dúbravka, NGO.

The process is divided into several steps. At the beginning together with the social worker the client names the problems when looking for a job and his strengths and weaknesses. This is followed by a volunteer internship at the Family Center, where the client is involved in performing various tasks, thereby acquiring work habits and learning regularity and responsibility. At the same time, he becomes a part of the local community. He is also gradually getting educated in the field of financial and computer literacy, practicing self-presentation, writing a resume and the like. Our social worker accompanies him through the entire process, together they evaluate all major events, changes, needs, but also difficulties and concerns that arise. This will be followed by the establishment of cooperation with employment agencies and employers, to whom we will be able to recommend a person with work skills and experience in volunteering.

At the moment the first clients are involved in the project and we are actively working on the involvement of others.

The project is implemented thanks to support from the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund within the Operational Program Human Resources.

So far, seven clients have participated in our new "DuK Employment Support" project. More than half of them have already successfully found a job. With some, we continue on our way to finding a new job. However, unemployment is not the only problem that our clients encounter. Over time and while establishing a relationship we also together open topics such as debts, relationships or addictions, so we try to adapt the project to take into account the person’s life situation. Not everyone has the same length of the journey ahead, and we are glad that these seven people have embarked on it with us so far.

During the implementation of the project we also encountered obstacles that we perceive as challenges and we are still learning how to improve the project. We have found out that for the most of our clients the volunteering stage is not suitable in their current life situation. Many of them are on the verge of poverty and need to find the work as soon as possible. We can see that the received education was the biggest benefit for these clients, e.g. a resume writing, interview preparation, financial and computer literacy. However, for another part of the clients, for example disabled retirees, volunteering has become rewarding. They integrated into the local community at the Family Center in Dúbravka, made friends and continue to actively cooperate with the Center.