TRUC SPHERIQUE

järjestön kuvaus

We are a team of activists for whom current social events, community work and culture are important. In the 1990s, as young students and volunteers, we started a successful non-profit youth initiative. The result of our more than 20 years of work in the small European town of Zilina are two community and cultural centres - Stanica Zilina-Zariecie and Nova synagoga Zilina.

We host various different forms of community activities and social gathering focused primarily on art, social inclusion, critical thinking, education and community empowerment. We build on our personal experience – we started as young people interested in art and culture, involved in active citizenship and non-formal education and we have grown to become a leading cultural-creative centre in Slovakia.

In the 23 years of our existence, we have organized several thousand community and cultural events, local and international projects, which were attended by more than 300,000 people. Thanks to the content of our program, openness, courage and above all thanks to hosting foreign volunteers, we have succeeded in making our city and country more open to diversity, tolerance, international cooperation, as well as the role and commitment of young people. So far, more than 5,000 young people have been actively involved in the activities we organised.

The program of activities consists of a relentless pulse of community events, theatre performances, concerts, film screenings, lectures, exhibitions, courses and workshops, residencies for artists of different fields, educational programs for schools, hosting and sending foreign volunteers. The hustle and bustle consists of diverse activities which are addressing a wide variety of people - children, youngsters, school groups, families, volunteers, artists, creative people, local community, different minorities and other communities.

The cultural and community centre Stanica is a situated in a local train station that till this day operates on the train line from Zilina to Rajec. We acquired the Stanica building for a 30-year symbolic lease from the national railway company. Under our hands, with the help of hundreds of volunteers, it underwent a significant reconstruction. The whole complex also includes a community garden - a summer courtyard with a terrace and a children's playground. We also take care of an adjacent piece of greenery - a mini bio park, which we understand to be our small contribution to address the climate change challenges (for instance we are beekeeping, storing the rain water there and using it for flushing the toilets, using solar panels...) .

The building of Nova synagoga is a synagogue designed in the thirties by world famous architect Peter Behrens and it is an important national cultural monument. We acquired this building in 2011 for a 30-year lease from the Jewish community. The building was abandoned and dilapidated. The Jewish community approached us to help them save the building. The reconstruction took us seven years. It was possible thanks to the creation of a huge community of people - 2800 supporters, hundreds of volunteers and many local companies. Our organization has won several national and international awards for its reconstruction. As a cultural monument in the city centre it is accessible to the public on the daily basis and attractive for tourists.

The outcome of the character of the both venues is a permanent process - connecting community, cultural, educational and social activities with public space and the public. We are also an artistic hub of a national importance, one of the largest non-governmental cultural centres in Slovakia, but at the same time still a small and immediate group of artists, art-lovers and activists who prove that anything can be possible.

A few selected successes we have experienced:
2004 - Enlargement of Minds Award from the European Culture Foundation in Amsterdam.
2012 - The newspaper SME reported the establishment of the cultural centre Stanica among
top 20 events of 20 years of independent Slovakia.
2013 - Most Award from the Youth Council of Slovakia for long-term contribution in activities
for children and young people.
2013- Award of the German magazine Bauwelt for the design of the reconstruction and start
of the renovation of the Nova synagoga.
2014 - Innovation Award of the Žilina Region in the Regional Development category.
2015 - Construction of the Visual Pyramid, an 18-meter art building-tourist shelter in Súľov.
2016 - Orange Foundation Award, Community Development category

Volunteering project