Our dear friends, donors, partners!
Do you also often receive questions "How are you?", "What's new?" If you are interested in our answer to them, read on. We bring you a short summary of social work at Doma at the Capuchins in the first half of 2023. Several changes have taken place, we are happy about the successes, but we are also learning to accept failures.
First of all, we have expanded the ranks of social workers who work full-time. Adriana joined Baška on the first of February and František came to us on the first of June. Our three employees now deal with clients. František is also the new volunteer coordinator.
Our organization has become a part of the Community Plan of Social Services, which is prepared by the capital city of Bratislava. This is a strategy plan for meeting the needs of the capital's residents, which should be valid for next 7 years. We are included in the working group for the area of Homeless people, because our clients also belong to the group of people at risk of losing their housing. In addition to the municipality, we meet with other organizations working in the social services area, which allows us to share experiences with each other, to jointly build a network of the helping organizations, and thus to improve the quality of our work. We also participated in the census of homeless people organized by the Municipality. We are actively meeting and preparing for the main counting night, which will take place on October 16, 2023.
We met with the team from Depaul Slovensko, n. o., which prepared a "world cafe" (workshop method) for us, thanks to which we could focus on topics such as PR and fundraising, human resources and networking. We also took part in a professional conference called "What about you, kids!?", which was organized by the non-profit organization Mládež ulice (Street Youth).
We signed up to the grant program of the city of Bratislava with a project aimed at preventing the loss of housing and supporting people living in uncertain housing in securing housing with a higher degree of sustainability and dignity. We also participated in the Call for the Prevention of Social Exclusion for the provision of a grant, which was announced by the Ministry of Investments, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic. Unfortunately, we did not receive a grant in any of the calls.
But we are glad that we could help our clients in several areas. – That is, in addition to regular social counseling and food support through the activity "Magic table". – We supported the client, who received rental housing, in settling down with basic equipment (e.g. pots, bed linen, quilt, pillows). We replaced another client's old broken down bed with a new one. Thanks to the "Let's help the children" project, which is organized by the DM drugstore in cooperation with the Slovak Catholic Charity, we were able to donate vouchers for a year's purchase of diapers to a client with a small child (specifically, 32 vouchers worth 384 euros).
We continue the "DuK employment support" project. Since its beginning, 14 people have joined it. There are currently five active volunteers at the Family Center in Dúbravka or with us. Some have already managed to get a job, with others we are still looking for work options that take their health into account.
We launched a new community activity. We contacted the civic association Christians in the City, which organizes regular weekly soup cooking for homeless people, to see if they need help. They were pleased with the offer, so we visited our three clients, to whom we introduced this activity. They all got involved immediately and came to cook in a few days. They prepared 40 liters of excellent lentil soup and a week later it was pea soup. When we asked them how they liked their first cooking together, they agreed on two things: that they like having the company, because it helps them to get some diversion, and that they are happy that they are doing a good thing and helping people who have even less than they have.
What more can we add... We thank them and all of you who stand behind us, because thanks to your support and trust we can give the helping hand to others.
