Main aim and activites:

The public debates within the project promoted the idea of civil society, participation of ordinary citizens and activists in public affairs. The public was able to directly comment on issues of social, communal and political life, and could directly ask questions of public officials. Through public debates, the organisation sought to strengthen and raise the level of critical thinking, to bring about a confrontation of opinions, to reveal different interpretive keys to important issues, but in an atmosphere of tolerance and peace.

In the framework of the project, 12 public debates were organised. The aim of the project was to activate civil society. However, tens to hundreds of people participated in and watched the debates, thus achieving the objective.
Every opportunity to publicly discuss and comment on issues is a positive phenomenon for the public. It is an opportunity to participate in public life. An individual’s feeling that his or her voice – opinion – is not being drowned out increases his or her dignity, reduces feelings of tension and can thus contribute to a healthier climate for society as a whole. In addition, it builds a natural interaction between the public official and the citizens. This dimension and the dimension of increasing the level of critical thinking in communities contributes to the health of the whole society.

Planned results: 09/2019 – 02/2021

Main aim and activites:

In the village of Chocholná-Velčice, 2 houses have been sold, into which people with disabilities will move. The people of the village, who found out what their new neighbours would be like, became worried. The aim of the project was to bring the two groups together so that the target group could gradually become part of everyday life in the village. Another aim was to gradually rid the inhabitants of the village of prejudices, fears and intolerance.

Within the framework of the project, 37 activities were carried out to bring the target group closer to each other and to raise their awareness: 8 workshops called Let’s get to know each other, let’s have fun – During the joint meetings mutual barriers were broken down, 3 information workshops – At the meetings the target group and other participants learned various information from the mayor, 6 cultural and 10 sports events – Motivating the handicapped and the citizens of the village to an active lifestyle through tennis, table tennis, football and rehearsals for cultural events in the village, 6 trips to the surrounding area – Through popular trips the target group got to know the citizens of the village better, exchanged experiences, 3 live libraries – Motivational talks with people who have managed to make it in life despite difficult beginnings.

Through joint activities, the vulnerable groups gained practical experience from the project which they use in their daily lives. At the activities, the disabled met many people from the village, barriers were broken down and mutual relationships were established. They will be familiar with this environment when they move to the village. They are already familiar with the mayor, the different organisations in the village, the cultural and sporting opportunities. As the civic association Stronger Weaker will continue to organise meetings of seniors, volunteers and clients of the Social Services Home as much as possible, mutual relations will continue to develop.

Planned results: 09/2019 – 11/2020

Main aim and activites:

The number of at-risk children and youth is currently increasing in Dúbravka. The number of drug users is increasing. Juvenile delinquency is on the rise. Conversely, the age at which they first experiment with alcohol or cigarettes is decreasing. Although the infrastructure for young people has been built in Dúbravka, it does not fully meet the needs of this group. The project focused on the expansion of outreach social work services in the district, where this service has only partially taken off. During the project, the services were extended by an additional day during which field social work was provided (2 days a week). During the outreach work, a survey of the needs of the target groups was carried out, which revealed the need to create a space for children and young people to spend their time. Therefore, the project implementers also tried to get a space for the implementation of a low-threshold club. They searched for land or premises, communicated with the city district and other organisations about the possibilities (KC Christiana, Centre for Family, etc.). The most important benefit for the children and youth is considered to be that the implementers of the project have gained their trust and the children and youth turn to them with their worries and problems.

Thanks to the project, the public and the authorities of the district are informed about the needs of the target groups. Oz ICHTYS now has the opportunity to put more pressure on the municipality to meet these needs.

Planned results: 08/2019 – 11/2020

Main aim and activites:

The project was aimed at developing opportunities for cultivated leisure time and increasing the interest of citizens in the community in the city of Trenčín. At the same time, it was intended to help non-profit organizations find new ways to talk about their mission and work. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the Intergenerational and Helping Quiz was held each month with the expected quality and participation. Ample space was provided during the activities to communicate their work. The collaboration with Zero Waste Trenčín and the Bezobalis store was of particular benefit, thanks to which questions were included and prizes with great added value were selected.
More than 250 people participated in the activities. The project promoters contributed more than EUR 1 500 to six organisations.

An important aim was to improve cooperation between different generations and to contribute to the development of volunteering in Trenčín. Thanks to the quizzes, citizens got to know local organisations that improve the situation of vulnerable groups and the environment. The feedback confirmed that the participants gained a healthy self-esteem, belonging and relationship with the city and the high school students from the preparatory team improved their organisational and communication skills. The positive energy brought good to the entire community during a difficult time.

Planned results: 01/2020 – 01/2021

Main aim and activites:

The project responded to the need to fill a gap in the education of secondary school youth in the field of civic coexistence, which consisted in the absence of a compact and graphically attractive dictionary-type manual usable in educational activities on this topic.
Within the framework of the project, the publication Together or Against Each Other was prepared for printing and published. What influences our coexistence. The aim of the publication is to introduce young readers to the broader socio-political, historical and ideological contexts of civil coexistence. It is a handbook in a slogan format. It contains 30 selected terms (keywords) related to civil coexistence. The entries fall into two categories. The first consists of terms that refer to phenomena that facilitate and deepen civil coexistence. The second consists of terms denoting phenomena of the opposite nature – those that do not favour, create obstacles to or openly suppress civil coexistence. The publication was distributed to several secondary schools and grammar schools across Slovakia. It was also used in educational activities at 11 secondary vocational schools and grammar schools in Bratislava. The publication was published on a special publicly accessible website.

The main outcome of the project was the publication of an educational manual that could be used in the long term in work with secondary school youth. The publication not only improved the quality of the educational activities carried out within the project itself, but also improved the equipment of secondary school teachers with usable reference sources in the field of social science literature.

Planned results: 09/2019 – 02/2021

Main aim and activites:

The aim of the project was to present a picture of the country, to warn against the concentrated and focused campaigns of extremists and the spreading racism. The mainstream media and other political parties did not pay attention to this campaign for a long time. It ran almost unnoticed for the whole half of 2019, although very intensively – in the period September-December, extremists organised 4-5 rallies a week. The project was dedicated to documenting lies and attacks on Roma and homosexuals. The videos were intended to arouse citizens, the media and politicians. The goal was achieved – in January, both mainstream media and political parties started to cover the issue.

The video “Apartments in Giraltovce” refuted the claims of the Kotleba family and their supporters that the Roma get apartments for free, do not pay rent or utilities, and that the apartments are being destroyed and bulldozed.
The project aimed to show the lies and attacks of the ĽSNS in order to alert civil society to the danger of the rise of extremism.

Before the end of the project, the situation in the country changed rapidly and the only relevant topic became the epidemic. The last set of videos addressed the situation and was a series of interviews with Slovaks abroad. It served to warn, to reinforce the sense of belonging and at the same time to encourage Slovak society that it is handling the crisis and the quarantine extremely well compared to other countries.

Planned results: 12/2019 – 02/2021

Main aim and activites:

The intention of the festival is to spread awareness about the trans community in Slovakia and to provoke public discourse in the form of debates, theatre performances, literary readings, concerts, film performances and exhibitions. The main motive is to draw attention to the plight of transgender people and to bring their lives and problems closer to the majority audience.
The second edition of the festival took place on 7 March 2020 at the A4 club in Bratislava. The programme featured performances by SkRAT Theatre with the play Mono, the band The Youniverse, the Prague drag show House of Garbage and DJ Reverend. The main point of the programme was a discussion on “Transgenderism in the family, moderated by Michal Havran. His guests were Veronika Hrašková, an LGBT activist and coach who works on trans people’s issues on a pan-European level, Pavlína Fichta Čierna, the mother of a transgender son, and her son Claude Johann Čierny, who was also the author of a photography exhibition called Transgression.

The exhibition, together with the screening of the documentary on the Cuban trans community, “Havana Diary”, were side events of the festival. The festival also included a 12-part video series in which personalities from the Slovak cultural and social scene answered questions about trans people and the stereotypes associated with them. All activities significantly help with the main purpose of the festival, to spread awareness about the trans community in Slovakia.

Through its existence, the project significantly contributes to breaking down social stereotypes and animosities towards the LGBT community, actively advocates for equal rights for this minority and fights against the myths and untruths that are spread about LGBT people in society.

Planned results: 03/2020 – 01/2021

Main aim and activites:

The One World Festival has a unique position in Slovakia as the only festival of documentary films dealing with human rights issues.

Regional cooperation and the development of partnerships across Slovakia was a desirable and necessary activity on both sides – on the part of the festival, but also on the part of the regional partners, who are represented by a wide range of cultural, civic and community organisations. In essence, it was about building the capacity of regional festivals and strengthening the position of their festival in the region. The challenge, as with probably all cultural events in the covid and post-covid period, was the planning and actual physical implementation of the project. Many of the organisations that were part of the project have built on the energy and work of small project teams. For these types of organisations, the challenge was often how to survive the covid-period and they often had to cancel, postpone indefinitely or deliver their activities online. The support that the project coordinator (through grant activities) was able to give them was certainly one of the reasons why each festival took place during a challenging period.

Above all, the project was important in that it enabled the deepening of cooperation between the parent One World Festival and the regions in the years to come, enabled regional festivals to participate in online events or to organise them directly, supported the development of new competences of festival or organisational teams, and linked regional organisations with other actors in the cultural-civic sphere.

Planned results: 09/2020 – 12/2021

Main aim and activites:

A year ago, the world was struck like a black swan by the epidemic of the Covid 19 virus. The planet, its resources, and we humans were beginning to hit our limits before the epidemic. The speed of our lives and the amount of consumption were becoming unsustainable. The coronavirus forced us to slow down. People switched to working from home, children learned independently with the help of online classes or assignments, opportunities to travel or consume were severely curtailed. This caused both a 6.4% drop in CO2 emissions and an acceleration of some of the changes that were gradually coming. In this project, through in-depth interviews with experts, the project implementers have highlighted what lessons this unexpected slowdown might have provided for us to grasp the crisis as a challenge and learn from it.

The Future World podcast series consisted of a series of 8 in-depth podcast interviews that were published via the Radio_FM platform and in transcribed form as articles on the Black Swan portal. These interviews explored what a post-pandemic world might look like and function in a way that does us no harm. Topics included: the future of the economy, the food supply, construction, housing, working from home, the post-consumer society, climate education, and low-wage jobs that our society cannot function without. Together, nearly 10,000 people have read or listened to all parts of the series. Over 400 people have started subscribing to the podcast channel. The project has brought new personalities and topics to the Slovak media space and given them the space to present the issues in real depth.

Planned results: 08/2020 – 03/2021

Main aim and activites:

The project supported children and young people from marginalised Roma communities in 4 locations: Podsadek, Košice – Luník IX, Rankovce, Veľká Ida and Stará Ľubovňa. The aim was to acquire education and skills for a successful life, which these children are often deprived of. The project started in the spring with education about climate change – lecturers from the Baterkáreň Community Centre prepared worksheets with audio commentary for the children. The lecturers helped the children to invent their own mini-project, which they presented at the end of the project. Ideas for community projects were generated continuously. Work on the projects intensified in the spring in proportion as the attendance activities were gradually renewed and launched.
Children and young people regularly consulted online projects with trainers from the Torchlight Cultural Centre and with local partners and the municipality. Implementation took place in June while the children were busily preparing for the final presentations. The original plan for the final event in Košice was simplified to an online webinar due to pandemic measures. Despite various constraints and complications, it was possible to prepare and implement 4 separate projects and as a reward for their efforts, the children and young people took a day trip.

Planned results: 10/2020 – 10/2021

Main aim and activites:

The project helped the League for Mental Health to open up the topics and create working groups that developed them into a sustainable form for their subsequent communication with the public and public authorities. Some of these in the form of long-term programmes, others as one-off educational activities. Financial resources earmarked explicitly for the background – project management, without which it is impossible to prepare any such activity, are very rare and this is where the greatest added value of this grant lies.

Within the project, 5 working groups have been created, focusing on the following topics:
1) Mental health care system reform and recovery plan were transformed into active participation of the League’s representative in the Government Council for Mental Health, in addition to public discussion.
2) the helpline initiative was transformed from a public discussion and pressure on the state through several activities into the creation of a systemic solution for the funding of helplines in the Ministry of the Interior and Communication
3) The Thin Red Line has transformed from a petition and public discussion into a project to identify professionals who understand and support the LGBTQI+ community
4) emotional education and mental health for high school students has transformed into a long-term project of the Schools for Mental Health Coalition
5) psychological violence in society has been transformed into a joint project with the Slovak Bar Association focusing on psychological violence.

Planned results: 11/2020 – 01/2022

Main aim and activites:

The project Orchestra from the Land of Silence explained the issue of women’s rights in the Middle East to Slovak students in a sensitive way through the story of their peers from the Afghan women’s orchestra Zohra, the subject of Lucie Kašová’s documentary film Orchestra from the Land of Silence. An important element of the school events was the opportunity for the students to meet Marzia, the main protagonist of the film, through a video interview. The students thus got in direct contact with a young student who is deeply affected by the problems in Afghanistan, thus increasing the real impact on the Slovak students’ thinking about the state of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

Planned results: 01/2021 – 12/2021

Main aim and activites:

Families and young people with Asperger syndrome lack the skills to advocate for their rights. The increase in the diagnosis and prevalence of this difference is coming up against the unpreparedness of professionals and society as a whole. The project was dedicated to both supporting children, young people and families with AS and to supporting and networking professionals who work on this issue. The networking of the organisations enabled the gathering of the necessary information and the targeting of the organisation’s activities to influence these processes, taking into account the specificities of the target group. This is a group whose needs are a major challenge for mainstream society and has a strong tendency to fall through the cracks of measures targeting other groups of disadvantaged people if there is insufficient knowledge of these needs. A total of 457 participants were involved in the project activities.

The main activity was the creation of a network of organisations that have been working on Asperger’s Syndrome for a long time and to increase its impact on a national level. The second activity was the creation of a joint training programme to be offered by the main actors of the network to groups of professionals who have not yet had the necessary tools for working with this target group. This will increase access to care for these families and individuals. More than 147 participants and organisations have been involved in the network’s activities. As part of the outreach activities, live libraries were conducted for 114 participants, and an online form of a live library was created – 10 video recordings of stories of families and adults with AS.

Planned results: 12/2020 – 10/2021

Main aim and activites:

Demagog.SK, as the first fact-checking platform with a reliable methodology in Slovakia, decided to intensify its work with youth by 1) strengthening students’ civic engagement through a 12-week internship at Demagog.SK with expert guidance, during which up to 23 students (13 extended their internship) verified more than 420 claims made by politicians, and 2) conducting a series of 12 workshops (basics of pol. system; critical thinking; searching and verifying information; writing professional texts with proper sourcing) for interns and youth organizations, who 151 participants took part.
In addition, a communication campaign was carried out on facts and myths about CANCER, KORONE and KORONE & ECONOMICS. Also, the project implementers, on social networks, made a campaign to publicize the internship in Demagóg.SK.

The good execution of the internship is confirmed by the fact that ten students wanted to extend it (it is unpaid).
Two interns proved themselves so well that the project organisers offered them a paid position.

Planned results: 01/2021 – 03/2022

Main aim and activites:

Planned results: 01/2021 – 01/2022

Main aim and activites:

The project Corruption – the act is happening, responded to the current social situation, marked by corruption cases in security structures, prosecution, courts, state administration in connection with organized crime. A state of lack of professional awareness, communication manipulation, lowering trust in justice, promoting indifference and accepting corruption as a social status quo still persists among the young generation. There is insufficient space devoted to the issue of corruption in schools, and there is a lack of materials on corruption prevention and experienced lecturers with practical experience, as well as coordination with the local government, NGOs and the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic.

The planned results were measured by quantitative indicators, i.e. about 300 participating students, qualitative indicator by increasing the interest in corruption issues among students, positive evaluation of the project by teachers. The unplanned results are characterized by the participating schools’ interest to intensify cooperation with local NGOs and to motivate official structures to cooperate as well.

Planned results: 12/2020 – 04/2022

Main aim and activites:

In a world where our privacy, data and psychology are becoming increasingly vulnerable targets for third-party interest, a few years after the tragic murder of a journalist and his fiancée, a film about the privacy of millions of people is gradually being made.

In the context of 3 media outputs, texts and online communication, it was also about creating a film format. This will be continued subsequently. The outputs are coherent communication outputs and a campaign to raise awareness about our totalitarian past, the right to privacy and who is most vulnerable today, both in reality, online and technologically.
Privacy is an issue that has global reach. Therefore, part of the project, (the introductory video) was subtitled in English and the plan is to expand the project overall to an international level.

The activities – discussions with privacy experts (lawyer A. Rozehnal, or cybersecurity expert) or personalities who have had direct experience with privacy violations (J. Pohle, N. Blahová, Chartist M. Vodrážka), elaborated texts and online distribution of this content has a long-standing place in the Slovak context. Even if the campaign resonated less in traditional media and the target groups measured in indicators, while exceeding the originally projected numbers, it is possible that the project will resonate most strongly and realistically only in the format of a comprehensive film and later.
The project of 3 lectures and videos, published essayistic texts about the privacy of Slovaks, thoughtfully follows the Salto Mortale project about coming to terms with the past and the StB bundles in the privacy of one’s own family.

Planned results: 11/2020 – 11/2021

Main aim and activites:

The Mestometer project was dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of spatial planning and the master plan itself for creating better places for all of us, especially in the context of the climate crisis. The master plan is often seen as a technical document that prevents development rather than enables it. Many towns and municipalities in Slovakia, including Košice, would prefer not to use the master plan and leave the city to the free decision-making of investors and politicians. Mestometer shows why this document is important for environmental protection and how we can use it to actively create a more social and ecological city. The installation and the publication show how important the spatial plan is for all of us and why we should take an interest in it, demand that it is up to date and comment on it as it is being developed. Based on the demand for the installation of the Town Plan at the Municipality of Košice and in other cities, we can say that the project has been successful and will be continued. Thanks to this project, we have drawn attention to the importance of the spatial plan and also made it accessible to the general public.

More than 800 people have been involved in the activities of this project through various types of events.

Planned results: 02/2021 – 11/2021

Main aim and activites:

The project Supporting Single Parents Online had the ambition to be a stepping stone in creating a platform for single parents. At the same time, it aimed to create a framework document that would be able to highlight the problems and needs of fathers and mothers caring for children and the household without a partner.

The project implemented 3 main activities:
1. Creation and maintenance of an e-learning platform – the platform was successfully created. The platform has been developed and maintained, and the platform has been updated with content, including educational videos. We noticed a high interest of the target group to register. Thanks to the platform, we were contacted by several single parents asking us to provide follow-up services.
2. Advocacy activities – meetings, negotiations and workshops resulted in the document Advocating for a dignified life for single parents. We used it to reach out to key actors influencing the environment of these families’ lives. Already during the project, as well as up to the present, follow-up meetings have been held, out of which proposals for improving their conditions have emerged.
3. Updating the website – we have updated www.jedenrodic.sk with new useful info for (not only) the target group.

Planned results: 02/2021 – 05/2022

Main aim and activites:

The aim of the project was to build a functional mechanism with the involvement of the whole community in Medzany, which is very important for their quality of life and the sharing of good practice. Outreach and education to change the attitudes of as many people as possible on the ground and on social networks. The community in Medzani was involved in a unique awareness raising project, Biodiversity School through play for children. Interactive lectures took place in the OZ Brod area (bees, bats, permaculture, rescued animals stationary), from where the project implementers moved with the children to the neighbouring gardens, where grandmothers showed them goats, sheep, horses, and taught them how to grow plants or what medicinal herbs are in the meadow. The children built their love of nature and knowledge through play, in addition to building a relationship with the elderly. The promotion and the information system were produced by the children. The love therapy worked mutually.

Planned results: 02/2021 – 12/2021