ENGAGE in Slovakia

Pontis Foundation hold an annual citywide volunteering event called Naše Mesto (“Our Town”), bringing together volunteers from various companies with local NGOs to help out on a number of projects in their community. The hugely successful programme is now completed it’s fifth year since launching in Bratislava in 2007 as "Naša Bratislava", and has since expanded to Žilina, Košice, Galanta, Hlohovec and Spišská Nová Ves.

Company employees trade in their business suits for volunteer t-shirts and help several community organizations, with employees working in teams or individually. There are thousands of beneficiaries ranging from one-off or regular clients of crisis centers, orphanages, kindergartens and homeless shelters, teachers and students as well as visitors of parks, playgrounds or city forests.

Apart from manual activities such as gardening, cleaning and painting, employee volunteers can also use their experience in legislation, marketing, computers or personal skills and broaden the knowledge of people working in the NGOs.

For instance, volunteers have provided NGOs with:

• Training on how to write press releases
• Support with writing a strategy
• English Classes to enable better communication with a wider audience

The next Naše Mesto event will take place in the Summer of 2012.

To find out how your company can get involved in this project please contact Jenny Todd.