Bystriny – torrents – is mostly a young, dynamic team of people who have a real passion for what they do and care about us living in a better country. “I am honoured to be able to work with such people and feel their drive, goodness, willingness to give away to others,” writes Zuzana Wienk. The immediate team consists of ten people who take care of the community, education, events, volunteers, marketing, PR graphics and editorial staff, and a number of collaborators and experts, without whom our services would not be as they are.
There are a lot of active people all over Slovakia who are improving their surroundings, community or some public area. However, they often feel lonely and overwhelmed, they have nowhere to turn for help. They are often uncomfortable innovators or provocateurs in their environments. A few key moments in our history have shown how important it is for such active people to be able to unite, endure, inspire others. However, there was no network linking them, regardless of age, region, theme or whether they were formally entrenched or just a temporary public benefit campaign.
The goal of Bystriny is therefore to create such a network or community that connects active people throughout Slovakia and helps them find professional help, support and inspiration to be stronger together. That way they can change the whole of Slovakia. That is why our central motto is:
We create a community and infrastructure for mutual cooperation. Through social networks and an online platform, we enable community members – whether active civic groups or expert volunteers – to quickly find and connect, make calls for help or advice, and get it quickly when it is most needed. At the same time, we organize community meetings for networking and mutual learning, various forms of education and training, tailor-made strategic mentoring. We try to write, talk, organize public events about clever people and their successes, so that the success and example of such people will inspire those who did not dare to change anything in their surroundings before. To show together that it is possible, whatever your age, education or background.
Our target groups are broadly speaking active citizens – those who make their surroundings better. We don’t care if it is an individual leader with an idea who can connect his surroundings, citizens who have come together for a year to defend a park, a forest, or a school or a non-profit organization that has been working on something for many years. On the other hand, it is these people who need support, so we try to find and connect volunteers and experts with a willingness to help or advise them.
During the implementation of the project, we managed to connect 27 initiatives, 131 volunteers, provide them with 121 useful links, 82 mentoring and training hours and organize 21 events and conferences. We are very much looking forward to the synergies that are gradually being created and the connections in the community. For example, the initial visit of entrepreneur and member of our Board of Directors Lucie Pašková to a community meeting Bystrín, where she once advised our initiatives on how to communicate more effectively with entrepreneurs, then led to several closer collaborations and most recently to an investor in unique accommodation for rent in Rožňava Monastery – one of our initiatives. It is this apartment that will provide the Monastery with a source of income that will be sustainable and will enable them to support public concerts, debates and cultural events.
They said about ACF – Slovakia
The ACF program is very important to us, it helps us diversify resources, stabilize and develop. In a situation where it is not easy to find support for non-profit projects, the ACF program is an important element in the non-profit sector and its focus on supporting deeper, systematic change and internal strengthening of organizations is a very important priority throughout the region.
