Project “Nest“

 

For many years, we have cooperated with Specialna Skola Internatna.

This is special school that provides students who have been selected by psychologists as requiring extra attention a place to live. The law stops providing constitutional care for these students after a certain age or after they finish their studies. We set up project NEST because of this problem. This project is supported from a grant project Hour for Kids. We focus on girls who want to be independent after the state ceases to care for them. To help them, we rent a flat in Prešov. The social support we offer is a registrated halfway house „NEST“ ad effectum of law NR SR 195/1198 Gazette.

The main goal of the project is to help foster girls from foster houses to gain independence and we want fulfill this goal three ways:

  • practical help ~ educate on job market, find employment and help them resolve different life situactions

                     

  •   accomodation ~ provide a safe living environment

  •  emotional support ~ demonstrate love and interest, see to their needs

            

We want to teach our girls how to live together – how to coexist and to divide labour in cooking, shopping, and cleaning. We want to teach them how to manage finances, and how to save money. We want to teach them how to write CVs and application forms, how to fill out inqueries, and to have basic PC skills. This is big challenge which requires ample energy and effort. For that reason we need more enthusiastic volunteers who will help these 18- 25 year old girls on their way to independence. Our volunteers are responsible for building up relationships through different activities like cooking, cleaning, playing sports, teaching the Slovak language, and leading crafts. There is a particular need for weekend volunteers.

By observing girls from foster homes, we find that their social and practical skills are not built up enough for independent life in society. We know about situaction very well, because of our cooperaction with „SYNAPSIA.“ It´s net of partners that provides help families, children and youth in threat. We know these girls need to learn public communication and to be responsible for their own actions. We see problems also in confidence and self value. The biggest problem is finding employment for these girls because of discrimination and a lack of employable skills. We see that we can´t change the influence that foster homes have on these girls quickly, but with patience we want to help them grow in these areas.