Slezská Diakonie

Slezská Diakonie is Christian social service provider which was founded in 1990 by the Silesian Evangelical Church. (www.slezskadiakonie.cz/en) Slezská Diakonie provides a wide range of social and social-health services along with the education in the Moravian-Silesian and South Moravian regions of the Czech Republic. The focus of the services are people with disabilities, homeless people, disadvantaged youth and children and other people who are marginalised for different reasons. According to the records in the Annual report from 2020, Slezská Diakonie employs 798 staff and has registered 111 services. The mission of the organisation is to provide social and social-health services of a high quality in accordance to Biblical principles of love and service to the neighbour. The services provided meet a wide range of needs, and each person is seen to be an individual and therefore the personal approach is the one which guides social service provision. The aim of the services is not just to find a solution to the particular problems of an individual service user. Alongside this, the services aim at preventing social exclusion and offering counselling, community work and institutional care. The phenomena which are dealt with: - domestic violence; - debt of individuals and families; - drug and alcohol abuse; - broken relations & families: foster parenting; - people with disabilities; - elderly people; - homeless people. Diaconal schools (kindergarten, primary school, secondary school) create a learning environment of inclusion and empowerment for each individual pupil in relation to the wide range of physical disability and learning difficulties and autism. In relation to the work of Slezská Diakonie, long term voluntary service is a unique opportunity for mutual learning, including for volunteers, service users and their families, staff, the local community, and others. The interVIA is the title for the umbrella international voluntary service programmes of Slezská Diakonie (www.intervia.cz). It is involved in both hosting and sending young people within Europe and to or from the wider world. The vision is to create possibilities for non-formal and informal learning of the people and groups involved. We believe that: - long-term voluntary service abroad is a unique opportunity in the life of each person to learn more about themselves, other people, and their spirituality and if appropriate, their relationship to God; - volunteering in different country is an enriching experience through which participants gain a new perspective on people, culture, religion and country; - volunteering challenges values, norms and attitudes and can bring change in people and communities. The learning is focused on personal, professional and spiritual growth of the volunteers individually and in international teams. Social, intercultural and socio-political understanding is fostered, and the young volunteers are motivated and encouraged to use time of voluntary service wisely in order to make this unique experience of mutual benefit. Since 2005 interVIA has exchanged nearly 230 volunteers. We join with others within the EU, including Germany, Poland, Spain, Hungary, as well as with other countries world-wide, including Tanzania, Israel, Turkey, the Ukraine and the USA.