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Community Assistance Centre | Civic Europe
Law, advocacy and policy, Youth participation and empowerment

Community Assistance Centre

Involving youth and connecting help providers in order to create a better post pandemic future.

Creators

Who is behind this?

Grega Donša

Klub prekmurskih študentov

https://kps.si/

Slovenia

Idea

Idea pitch

Students who want to help their home region are going to develop an assistance centre platform where students will provide free legal aid, psychological counselling and tutoring for youngsters with learning difficulties. However, most importantly, we are going to bring together all organizations in the region that provide help in order to secure efficient and multidimensional support for people in distress.

Where will your project idea take place?

The project will take place in Murska Sobota (Pomurje region, Slovenia).

What is the specific societal challenge faced by this region?

The Pomurje region, according to statistical data, is the least developed region in Slovenia. It is facing high unemployment rate, low birth rate and brain drain. Covid-19 pandemic increased societal challenges as many people lost their jobs, youngsters were only able to attend school via online tools, social connections were disrupted, and, consequently, many people are facing social, psychological, legal and learning issues.
The region needs an entry point in the form of a Community Assistance Centre where people with different types of problems could receive immediate help. There are different types of help/support providers that are already doing a good job, but those organizations are not cooperating in order to provide a multidimensional and tailor-made help services.

Who are you doing it for?

The project is designed for all people (elderly, Roma community, unemployed, youth, employed with love incomes, people in distress, people with different form of addiction, etc.) in the region that need help (all age groups) and for young people (students of different backgrounds/profiles) that want to help their home region.

How do you plan to get there?

1. We are going to form a group of students of different backgrounds that will provide free services for people in distress.
2. The Community Assistance Centre will contact all the help providers in the region and introduce its services.
3. A meeting of regional help providers will be organized in order to form an alliance of regional help providers. Communication channels will be developed.
4. We will introduce the project to municipalities and media representatives.
5. Students will provide three types of help that were identified as most needed. In the premises of the Community Assistance Centre and via phone, we are going to provide free legal aid, psychological counselling and tutoring for primary and secondary school students.
6. People that will need support that exceeds the capacities of the Community Assistance Centre will be connected with help providers in the frame of our Alliance. Their progress will be monitored until the problem is solved.

What are the expected results?

1. Unique Community Assistance Centre platform that will serve as an entry point for all the people that need help and will connect all the help providers in the region to secure efficient multidimensional service.
2. A platform that will bring together students from the Pomurje region who will so stay connected with their home region, use their theoretical skills on practical examples and provide community service.
3. Daily service (free legal aid, free psychological counselling, free tutoring) for people in distress and support in obtaining free services from other help providers.
4. Addressing negative impact of Covid-19 pandemic.
5. Preventing brain drain and involve youngsters in building the post Covid-19 future.

How does your idea strengthen active citizenship at a local and community level?

Many young people in the Pomurje region do not return home after obtaining a faculty degree. In addition, youngsters from our region have difficulties to transfer knowledge from theory to practice. On the other hand, people in the region need help, especially regarding the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Community Assistance Centre will provide daily help services for people in distress and enable our students to invest their theoretical knowledge in solving real-life problems. In addition, this is going to be a young peoples’ initiative that will provide positive impact on wide range of target groups. Also, students from the Pomurje region will connect all the help service providers in the Pomurje region for the first time.

Why is this idea important to you?

As a Student’s club, we are very much aware of the problems in the region. We have skills and knowledge to help people in need. In addition, we believe that the connection of help providers for the first time should derive from young people, as we have no past burdens and are future oriented. Our motives are very clear:
- we want to help people;
- we want to use our theoretical knowledge in solving real-life problems in home region;
- we want to encourage as many of our members as possible to stay connected with their home region via the Community Assistance Centre;
- we want to bring together all the help providers in order to ensure top quality help for people in distress;
- we believe it is our responsibility to help to secure a better society after Covid-19.

€ 24000,-

Total budget

€ 18000,-

Funding requested from Civic Europe

Major expenses

Staff costs – 20,300.00 EUR
Travel costs – 500,00 EUR
Promotion – 2,000.00 EUR
Office costs – 1,200.00 EUR

What do you need from the Civic Europe community?

It would be very important to receive feedback in form of valuable suggestions on how to improve project activities. We would also like to use this opportunity to establish contact with organisations that have similar ambitions and motives for providing similar services in their communities.

Team

GregaDonsa

Idea created on April 22, 2021

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