Depaul International Group The Depaul Group was created in 1989 as an initiative of His Eminence Cardinal Basil Hume, later the Archbishop of Westminster, in order to provide services to those sleeping on the streets in central London and to address local needs. This work was entrusted to the members of the St Vincent de Paul charity family - hence the name of our charity - and the founding trustees of the charity were the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, the Society of St Vincent de Paul and Passage - Day Center. These organizations continue to play an active role in leading the Depaul Group, both domestically and internationally. From its earliest beginnings, the Depaul Group now works in more than 50 projects with homeless people across Great Britain and Ireland. We also work in prisons, with families in trouble, with people dependent on drugs and alcohol, and provide training exercises to help people find jobs and improve their education. We employ more than 400 people full-time and a similar number of volunteers, who help more than 5,000 people each year. During a period of reflection and discussion, members of the Board of Directors of the Depaul Foundation agreed to expand the group's work internationally, focusing on Central and Eastern Europe - more precisely the accession countries and their neighboring countries, where the transition to a market economy was not followed by a similar transformation in the social sphere. We started such work in Slovakia and Ukraine.

The Depaul Kharkiv organization in Ukraine was established in April 2007. It operates an outreach service and a day center for children aged 7–18 on the streets in the Kharkiv region bordering Russia, where we work with more than 100 street children. It also plans to expand services to include a night shelter. The youngest addition to the Depaul family is a project in the USA aimed at helping the homeless in the city of Philadelphia.

The Depaul Group has committed itself to raising the funds required to support projects in Slovakia and Ukraine during their first five years of operation. The services are also further developed through mentoring by senior managers, as well as internships in Great Britain and Ireland. In addition to our work carried out by the individual national Depaul group charities, we also work together against human trafficking in Europe. We intend to support and find ways for those who travel against their will, and to return to their country of origin if this is desired and safe.

Depaul Slovensko, non-profit organization Our non-profit organization operates two facilities in Bratislava, where it cares for people without homes. It was established in 2006 with the aim of opening a low-threshold night shelter and thereby protecting people without homes from extreme cold in winter. It was primarily a response to the crisis situation of winter 2005/2006, during which at least 19 homeless people died in Bratislava from hypothermia in severe cold and an emergency tent city was established.

After several months of unsuccessful searching for premises to run the shelter, in mid-December 2006 the Capital City Office of the Slovak Republic Bratislava offered us premises. The personal initiative was then shown by Mayor Andrej Ďurkovský, who was not afraid of controversial reactions and prejudices against the group of dependent homeless people among the majority of the public. Thanks to the premises on Ivanska cesta in the Bratislava-Ružinov district, we opened a low-threshold shelter on December 21, 2006, which continues to operate to this day and has already provided services to over 2200 people in need in Bratislava.

Another milestone in our activity was October 2008, when we opened the St. Louise de Marillac Shelter with a capacity of 30 beds. We established it mainly to provide shelter and round-the-clock care to people without homes whose overall situation is complicated by their health condition. The admission condition is that the client has nowhere to go, is ill, and at the same time wants to work on improving their health condition, which is confirmed by their effort and decision to avoid consuming alcohol or other addictive substances.

Our facilities in Slovakia St. Vincent de Paul Shelter

  • on an average day it is used by around 130 people without shelter from Bratislava and the surrounding area;
  • we provide food, clothing, and basic hygiene;
  • arranging medical care and treatment for addiction, social counseling, and help with finding work;
  • we apply a low-threshold approach, so help is available also to socially excluded groups of people without shelter who are not able to meet the conditions for entry into other facilities;
  • since its opening, our help and shelter have been sought by already over 2600 homeless people

St. Vincent de Paul Shelter Ivánska cesta 32, 821 01 Bratislava Tel: 0911 447 577 noclaharen.vincent@depaulslovensko.org

  • help for people on the street,
  • collection of clothing and material donations,
  • volunteering

St. Louise de Marillac Shelter

  • provides shelter and 24-hour care to people without homes whose overall situation is complicated by their health condition;
  • we focus mainly on homeless people released from hospital who have nowhere to go and need to recover;
  • the shelter has been operating since 2008 and has a capacity of 30 beds;
  • in addition to personal hygiene, food and clothing we also provide social assistance, social counseling, and mediation of medical care and addiction treatment.

St. Louise de Marillac Shelter Krčméryho 8-10, 811 04 Bratislava Tel: 0904 738 749 utulok.lujza@depaulslovensko.org

  • help for sick people on the streets,
  • collection of clothing and material donations,
  • volunteering

Author: Ing. Mgr. Juraj Barát / Depaul Slovensko, n.o.

This article was published in the proceedings of the conference ,,Inclusion of socially excluded groups and models of operation of low-threshold facilities in Slovakia', organized by Depaul Slovensko, a non-profit organization in Bratislava on 26 October 2010. Reviewers of the proceedings: Ing. Mgr. Juraj Barát, Mgr. Jaroslava Poloňová, PhD. Publisher: DEPAUL SLOVENSKO, non-profit organization, Bratislava 2010 ISBN: 978-80-970578-2-4