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.