Depaul Slovakia: Breakfast for the Homeless

Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, is surrounded by a beautifil nature. Within few minutes drive you can escape a noisy hectic city and enter a peacful nature full of wild life and beautiful sceneries. But behind a beautiful sceneries of a nearby forest, gardens or wild river banks, there is a distant and hidden world. In this world homeless people try to stay unseen living their quiet life undisturbed by foreign intruders. Visitors are not welcomed, because any visit might bring a threat or force to leave the space.

Two years ago, responding to many requests from local municipalities, Depaul Slovensko opened a streetwork service which brings help to these homeless people. Many of them are scared of the outside world and do not want to have any contact with social institutions. The key element to successfully bring help to these people is to overcome their protective barrier of suspicion and to build trust with them.

During one of their many trips our streetwork team discovered a small hut hidden in the forest. In the hut big enough for two, four men were living in. It took several visits and liters of hot coffee to win the  trust and these men until they started to open their lives. Among them was Laci, 57 years old, strong and energetic man, always optimistic and always positive. He was making his living by collecting iron. Every day he tried to collect as many heavy iron pieces as he could and bring them to city to sell them. He was missing personal documents and because of that for state institutions he was non-existing. But he was willing to cooperate with our team on improving his situation. Dealing with offices is often very stressful and to obtain any legal paper is a long and complicated procedure. After six months of hard work Laci got his ID card, health insurance and other necessary documents. At the end he even received a letter from social office informing him, that a regular social benefit of €62 was granted to him for which he has to do 32 hours per month of public works for that municipality. Laci was excited. As the first day of his work slowly approached we discovered during one of our visits that his right arm was swelling: „That is nothing, maybe just an insect bite“. We took a nurse, our colleague to visit him. She warned us, that if not treated properly he might loose his fingers or even the whole arm. We took him to hospital for emergency and after that we regularly visited him to treat him. After three weeks his arm was healed and Laci was ready for work again.

Now, six months later, he is still doing public works, his arm is clean and he is cheerful and optimistic as always. People from municipality responsible for public works are happy with his work and just recently Laci got an offer from them for a permanent job.

We keep visiting this small crowded hut in the forest and we keep our fingers crossed. We are looking forward to learn where this new journey of Laci will end.

The project is managed by Depaul Slovensko. Thank you for your interest and support.

A month ago we faced a terrible accident in our city in which a private hostel burned to the ground. The hostel was mainly used by people from a lower social class. Due to the lack of social housing in Bratislava, people with limited resources are often living on streets or using this type of hostel for accommodation. In the hostel three people died and another 30 became homeless in just couple of hours with all of their possessions lost in flames.

We opened our nightshelter for those who survived: the first night eleven people came from this hostel and three people are still living in our Shelter St. Vincent de Paul until today. Our street workers were searching and helping those who lost everything, but did not come to our shelter. Since this tragedy we are communicating with municipalities to prepare a strategy to avoid similar crises in the future.

Cooking with volunteers

Last year we started a very special project called GULÁŠOVANIE (goulash party). The concept is very simple: a group of volunteers meet in our Nightshelter St. Vincent de Paul and prepare a soup for 160-200 of our clients. This project was very successful in attracting volunteers into our project and connecting them with our work and with homeless people. Volunteers are always leaving the nightshelter very encouraged as they always generate big smiles on more than 160 hungry faces of people who appreciate the warm soup in the cold days more than anything else.

Since the beginning more than 300 volunteers were involved in “gulášovanie” and prepared 4 200 litres of soup. We plan to keep this project running and maybe even expand it to get more volunteers involved on regular basis. 

Donation for Mr. Kilian

Mr. Kilian is a very special client to us. He used to be a sailor for more than 26 years. But when he returned to his home country there was nobody waiting for him. He had some tough years which he spent on streets. After a certain time living on streets his health deteriorated and he ended up in our Shelter St. Louise for sick homeless people. In the shelter we helped him and now, Mr Kilian, feels better again. We started to work with him on searching for a place, something that he could call home. Unfortunately, he has a debt on a social insurance which blocks him from this move. To repay the debt 20% has to be paid in the first instalment. We decided to help Mr. Kilian to start his new life and we organized a financial collection to pay his first instalment. After he pays the first instalment he will be able to pay the rest which will come in smaller amounts. To our surprise we collected the needed sum within two days after we started collection. We are happy and thankful to our donors that we all can be part of this story and we can give this special man a second chance to start his life all over again.