ESC: Malý Berlín solidarity project

The Little Berlin cultural center has been open since March 2018 and organizes a wide range of cultural events for the widest possible visitor base. These are mainly concerts, theatre performances, film screenings, discussions and lectures on various current topics as well as language club meetings and other leisure activities. Last year, we have expanded with a gallery in which we give space to young curators, students or recent graduates. The cultural centre is a project of the civic association Publikum.sk, which has so far been accredited for EVS and later for ESC. The association grew from a group of volunteers to a professional institution with a nationwide reach. Thanks to this development, we also have a strong relationship with volunteering and we try to develop it in the centre through activities or events. Today, Publikum.sk is mainly engaged in a separate one-off project and publishing activities, the Little Berlin cultural center, which is an independent legal entity - a civic association, operates all year round. In addition to our own program, we often provide space for the public for their meetings or local theaters for rehearsals and presentations (the center is, for example, the home stage for the DEMOscéna team), or for art schools and their students as a space where they present their student performances. Little Berlin is also a meeting place for the civic public and local interest groups at their events such as meetings of Trnava ornithologists, meetings and activities of various ecological groups, meetings of Slovaks with foreigners during a language cafe, meetings of Trnava embroideries and many others. We strive to offer a varied program of independent culture throughout the year, but civic activities of national significance are not foreign to us either: topic of the far right (screening of the film Branci with a subsequent discussion for its deeper understanding), we helped with the organization of protests Za slušné Slovensko (loosely translated as For Decent Slovakia) and we have also organised a participatory project Urban Interventions for Trnava, in which we, together with professionals and public, sought ideas for improving public space. Every year, together with other cultural organizations from the city, we participate in the preparation of a memorial program of the Velvet Revolution or a reverential act in memory of the Ukrainian Famine. In the future, we want to focus on deepening and expanding our program on democracy, new minorities and housing from a social, urban and architectural point of view. In every activity, we place a strong emphasis on ecology and minimizing our carbon footprint. Through our activities we try to build a pleasant and stimulating environment, we generally try to bring exceptional artistic and cultural events to the city and introduce them to the widest possible audience – this is how we would probably summarize our main goal in the centre: to bring quality content and mutual understanding to the widest possible audience. Therefore, it can be said that a large part of our promotional activities pursue educational rather than financial goals. Through a diverse program, we aim to attract all ages, fans of quality artistic and cultural content. The target group consists of the inhabitants of Trnava and its surroundings areals, we try to prepare a program for every age group, while we remain affordable even for the socially disadvantaged. The program is designed for high school and university students, retirees, families with children and, of course, adults. After years of operation, we already have a community of closer collaborators in our area, who bring their own topics from their field of activity (art, architecture, political science, science, ecology…), so together we create a diverse program that is current and has the potential to positively affect the development of the city, region or country. In the city, we try to act as an active member of society, to clearly communicate our values and attitudes, which overlap with the values of the European Union and the ESC program. Thanks to the ESC, we want to develop and strengthen our profile of an organization with an international character, which is ready for new challenges thanks to cooperation with foreign volunteers who broaden our horizons.