Also in the non-profit organization Doma u Kapucínov (AT HOME with the Capuchins), as part of our help to people in need, we had to respond to the difficult situation regarding the spread of COVID-19. Despite the fact that we prefer help in a personal way - from person to person - in this situation we have initiated a contactless form of help.
We buy durable food that donors cannot bring due to the currently closed Bratislava monastery and the Capuchin Church thanks to financial contributions from benefactors.
Our great volunteers usually pack food packages at the beginning of each month. During the pandemic, however, they are packed by the Capuchin brothers, because the food storehouse is located in their house. The brothers disinfect the purchased food, wrapp it and leave it untouched for 24 hours. Then they disinfect them again. Protective face masks for children and adults are also added to the packages. The face masks were provided through the cooperation of our volunteers with the BDC (Bratislava Volunteer Center) and with the ktopomozeslovensku.sk project, but they were also donated to us by anonymous donors. Information on how to protect yourself and others from the infection and disinfection materials donated by the NGO Úsmev ako dar (Smile as a gift) were also part of the April package.
Our volunteers then provide the delivery itself. Delivery also takes place without direct contact with the people we help. A food package is unloaded by a volunteer from a car and a client takes it in a way so that he / she does not come into direct contact with a volunteer. In this way too we want to protect our clients and us from the risk of infection.
Our social workers are in a telephone contact with clients. They will encourage, listen, and help with information about the possibilities of support at this time - either by the state or other non - governmental institutions and organizations. Thus they stay with people giving their humanity, their interest in a person. They stand by those who have lost their jobs, who are struggling with illnesses, who have found themselves in financial need, who are afraid of losing their homes and do not know what it will be like tomorrow.
We stay with people because that is what DOMA = AT HOME means.
If you would like to support our clients, you can do it through:
domaukapucinov.darujme.sk/551.
You can follow our activities at:
www.facebook.com/domaukapucinov
www.instagram.com/domaukapucinov
Mária Magurová
Volunteer Coordinator
