Another series of activities under “Find Your Home” Armed Forces Project attracts interest from clients of Centres for Children and Families and many others

Early Thursday morning, reveille was sounded at the Havranovo Cottage (Martin County) to wake up the participants of the Military Christian Camp 2020, organised by the Head Office of Ecumenical Pastoral Service in the SVK Armed Forces and Armed Corps. This signal started the Military Day during which children from the Residential Children’s Homes (Centres for Children and Families) in Necpaly and Martin learned more about their military patrons and daily military life. As part of the Military Day programme, Defence Minister Jaroslav Naď, accompanied by Deputy Chief of Defence/Chief of Staff Maj Gen Miroslav Lorinc, took the opportunity to see for themselves the activities of the continuously expanding “Find Your Home” project. Displays and demonstrations of weapons and equipment, airsoft playing and camouflage face painting – these all contributed to a welcome variety of activities.

Since the start of the summer holiday this has been the 9th such event organised for children and young people from various centres, starting from Levice through Ružomberok to Trebišov, Prešov and Svidník. “The promotion of volunteerism, the humanisation of the military profession and giving the public an insight into what we do – these are some of the themes for the Find Your Home programme. Our ambition is to give a helping hand where needed. In many cases, rather than providing material help, it is more about setting an example to child clients of the centres and giving them the human contact. On many occasions, it is the soldiers who present their service as a mission that are capable of showing the growing child clients the right path in life,” said Chief of Defence Gen Daniel Zmeko.

The “Find Your Home” project, which is covered by the interdepartmental agreement between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family, creates partnerships between military units and the Centres for Children and Families. After the pilot year 2019, when nine centres joined the project, this year has seen 16 centres establishing their partnerships with military units based in their vicinity. Such partnerships rely not only on soldiers giving presentations at the centres, but also take form of tangible help, for example, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic soldiers have distributed hand antiseptics and disinfectants for interior spaces to the centres, since the centres with high concentrations of children and young people living together are particularly vulnerable.