Caritas, results and new horizons ” “

Humanitarian and development aid provided abroad in total amount almost 700,000 EUR, domestic charitable services in over 200 social, healthcare and educational institutions, engagement in the fight against unjust financing of social services – all this represents a part of the last year’s balance of Caritas Slovakia. Danka Jaceèková has interviewed Radovan Gumulák, general secretary of its national office, about evaluation of the results of 2013 and plans for 2014. Can we start with last year’s facts and figures regarding Caritas projects in Slovakia and abroad?”If we speak about humanitarian and development aid provided behind the borders of Slovakia, the precise amount is 696,000 EUR, mainly in the areas affected by natural disasters and war conflicts. We have helped the inhabitants of the Philippines hit by destructive typhoon, as well as the refugees from Syria who have fled to Lebanon and Jordan. A special part of our activities focuses on the countries of so-called ‘third world’ – in Uganda we have built a center for children suffering from AIDS, another project is supported by Caritas in Kenya where we managed to help dozens of farmers simply by finding alternative sources of drinking water and putting them into operation. Hundreds of people from Slovakia help children in African countries, Haiti, Vietnam, Albania, India and Kazakhstan within the project of ‘distant adoption’. But we certainly don’t forget people in need who live in our country. To be precise – we offered our social, healthcare or educational service in over 230 institutions run by Caritas Slovakia, thus helping about 30,000 people in difficulties. For example, last autumn we prepared the biggest food collection ever organized in our country and in only six days we managed to collect food in total amount 22,000 EUR, which is really amazing”. What are the most serious problems in Slovakia, in regard to your work and activities?”A long-time problem we have to face is unjust financing of social services. Private providers of healthcare like charitable institutions or centers of social services don’t get enough money from the municipalities and the state to manage the growing demand. In November 2013, the situation was so unbearable and hopeless that we decided to organize a demonstration in front of the parliament to draw the attention. Thanks to this step we succeeded in certain areas, the politicians promised to focus on the problem, so in 2014 we’ll see how theories turn to practice, I hope. There are also difficulties in the sphere of palliative care for the patients in terminal stage of their life, where health insurance companies cover only 60% of overall expenses. The rest has to be paid by the patients and they very often can’t afford it. The income of certain groups of people is so low that they decide to borrow money from non-bank institutions with horrible interests and Caritas has appealed several times to the government to adopt legal measures against this exploitation, but this problem still remains open”. Holy Father Francis is known as a man of solidarity with the needy. How does his sense for social matters influence your work and activities?”I believe that thanks to the attitude of the Holy Father, the diacony to the needy in parishes will get a bigger space. We hope that in his example, the faithful will find a motivation to develop charitable activities at local level. This would be a great inspiration also to us and all employees of Caritas to find more and more courage for realization of our help to the poor”. What are the concrete plans and projects of Caritas Slovakia for 2014?”We have recently launched a campaign ‘Gift Box Slovakia’ in cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as a prevention of human trafficking. This project takes place within the framework of a global initiative of the United Nations and we are the third country in the world to have engaged in it. We also want to focus on amendments in the law on social services and a great challenge for us will be a new project of help to migrants who have come to Slovakia to seek asylum. There’s a need to integrate them in our society, so that they become independent from the help of state of non-government organizations. It’s our experience that along with traditional projects running for several years that constantly draw attention of the citizens, we need to come with new creative and inventive ideas to make people more sensible towards the challenges of contemporary times”.