Slovakia – ”cooltura”
01/02/2021
The Ursuline Sisters of Trnava in the Slovak Province have experienced that dreams can come true through cooperation and human kindness. Despite many difficulties, they succeeded in carrying out a project to create a meeting place for young people.
In January 2019 our students from the Secondary School of Angela Merici in Trnava had the inspiration to create an informal space, where they could spend free time. It was a great idea by itself but it was like a dream which would never be possible to fulfil – to find the space, to get money, find the time to carry out the project and so on. However, our desire gradually grew. In October 2019 we applied for a grant through a foundation which exactly fitted our dream and we were chosen among 100 projects which had the chance to win the competition. We did everything possible and God blessed us. We were granted €8000 from this foundation.
Following this, we were able to begin with chapter one of our dream. We searched for the way to reconstruct our basement in the most effective way which would fit the needs for our project. At this exact same time Corona virus became part of our lives and stopped everything. Despite this, we found many people and some companies who helped us to realise our dream. Together with our students, their parents, friends and sisters we became for this time masons, painters, cleaners and designers. 51 people who offered their free time, and at least 1217 hours of voluntary work brought our dream into reality.
Our students also chose the name for this place. They were thinking about ‘solid ground’ or ‘fruitful earth’ but since these names didn’t sound so good when translated we decided to use the Italian word “coltura”. We have therefore called our space “COOLTURA” – as fruitful earth for our growth, for our community, for our relationships and for goodness.
