Shaping Personalities in Indirect Way

It is Tuesday and it is raining outside. We are sitting around the table in one of the back rooms in the church in this settlement. One can really say that this church is the place of fellowship. One minute you see the pastor preparing for the sermon, then we have meetings of the Local Team, and we also run our regular activities with children in this house.

Rudo, Jano, Rasťo, Florián, Jano and Lukáš. They all went through a significant change in their lives because somebody offered them a helping hand soon enough. They came from settlements, from conditions of poverty. Today they are all sitting around me as tutors of the pilot project. If you want to listen just take a seat and join us.

Why did you decide to cooperate on the Jarovnice project?

Ján Zubaj (Jano 1): I have been doing this job for four years already, and I have achieved quite a lot in my village of Bystré. I believe that I can pass this knowledge on and put it to some use here in Jarovnice. 

Rastislav Zubaj (Rasťo): For me it is a challenge. I only heard negative stuff about Jarovnice. I would like to correct the public opinion and introduce Jarovnice in positive light. I think the young people are the way.

Rudolf Pohlodko (Rudo): I have been working with children and the youth for some time and every experience counts. There is a bunch of children that one needs to work with and give them a push in the right direction.

Ján Mihálik (Jano 2): For me it is also a challenge, I want to work with young people. I was glad to see a project happening with the focus on the children of Jarovnice. Things are finally on the right track.

Florián: I enjoy working with children. I want them to achieve something. Nobody is working with our children these days. They come home from school and that's it. They just hang around. This at least lets them spend their free time. And children like it. So do parents.

Lukáš: I have been working with children for some time and I know it is very important for someone to work with them.

Imagine 2 or 3 years passed and you are looking back – what would you like to see? 

Jano 2: If we implemented another such project, I wish the children we are working with now would cooperate with us. And help further generations. 

Rasťo: So they could see how far they can go. We all came from Romany settlements. We wish the children would see a different world beyond the settlement. 

Jano 1: So they find out what is good for them in the area of education, so they have more possibilities to find jobs and adapt to the majority while preserving their own cultural identity.

Florián: So those children would be able to get out of the settlement, for example by being admitted to schools. Whether they are secondary schools, or whether they take advantage of their talent. So they find their place in life and get to know different life beyond the life in the settlement.

Lukáš: A new generation that can integrate into the society, it has a goal and a sense of direction, they can become role models and gradually even help the others.

What did this work give to you as a person?

Jano 1: I understood how one person can influence others. It is not just about coming and doing something with children. It is truly a great responsibility. Actually, we indirectly shape their personalities and at the same time their future.

Jano 2: The children influence us and we influence them. It is nice; I enjoy it when I see how the children enjoy it. Then I really feel like doing more activities, because children themselves want to come to us. They come and they try, they are active. Sometimes we even have to calm them down, guide them, and show them where the boundaries are. 

Rudo: They are very modest; thankful for every opportunity they are given. Especially when we work with them. Because we do not only have professional relationships with them, we work with them on friendly basis, sometimes even familiar.

Rasťo: I am already starting to worry that we cannot work with those kids in the long term. We will be here until the end of the year, and then what? We built a certain relationship with them. We got to know the people, the stories of their lives and the circumstances – and this is a very short time period. I would hate to break up this project or be tied to a specific time period. I see my future here, I would like to stay here and work with these kids. 

Jano 1: Maybe not just me but several of us realized one thing. We live in a civilized world, but here in the Jarovnice community lives another community – the settlement. And this is a world by itself. One realizes we slowly keep pulling those children out of this world and give them a chance to explore a different world. We hope they would accept it. But what then? Let us hope it will not be in vain. 

Rudo: We are afraid that the project will come to an end and once again they will fall back to their world. These are individuals in the critical age. They can make choices about their future, and because of them it would be great to make the project go on. As a matter of chance I was exactly in the same age when I was given a helping hand and I made it all the way to college. If I was not helped by a certain civil association, who knows where I would have ended up. I think we have great children here – like for example René Červeňák who is an excellent student. He attends secondary school, would like to try and pass final exams and graduate. I see a great potential in him, he can really take it a long way. 

Lukáš:New experience, I got to meet new people and found new friends. 

The children of Jarovnice are meeting with children enrolled in the Divé maky program. Does it make sense? 

Rasťo: We call it “being taken out of natural habitat”. Even outside of joint workshops we try to bring the Divé maky children to Jarovnice and take the Jarovnice children to where the children of Divé maky live. Our intention was to show them the progress, so they can talk, exchange experience, find out what Divé maky is about.

For example now, 4 boys, musicians and a dancer spent the whole Saturday in Čičava. The guys just loved it. It was a meeting of some 20 musicians from Divé maky as well as Jarovnice. They exchanged experience, it was very nice. One of them was René Červeňák who is one of the most talented dancers from Jarovnice. He taught the theatre performers of Divé maky some moves suitable for theater and skits. On Saturday they rehearsed and on Sunday they shot amateur videos they submitted into one contest. René created a whole short program where the guys danced electric boogie. It was just super.

Jano 1: We had theatre performers from Bystré here. We are trying to set up a group like that here in Jarovnice. So the children of Bystré exchanged experience with the children of Jarovnice, they made new contacts and new friends. I was planning to make such meetings every Saturday, but it is quite demanding and I only do it once monthly now. I take them along and they spend the whole day here.

Lukáš: When meeting with children of Divé maky the children of Jarovnice can see that it makes sense to work hard. When they talk to them they see what they went through, how far they came and they motivate them to work harder.