ZaBrehem

Basic information

Project Title

ZaBrehem

Full project title

Social and cultural community ZaBrehem

Project Description

Project ZaBrehem, which means in czech language "Over the bank/shore" is a social project and culture centrum. It is a community space in village where 15people lives together as a community and includes a few people with psychiatric diagnosis. We are connecting arts, culture, psychology and artetherapy together to create bridges between people. In a future project want to be as sustainable as possible and at the same time cooperate with other similiar community projects.

Project Region

Strážná, Czechia

EU Programme or fund

Description of the project

Summary

The project "ZaBrehem" - is a community space in a small czech village Strážná in beautiful nature. In 1937 there was built a village school, later in 80ties it was a house for scouts. Later it became a hostel and then the owners wanted to sell the house. My partner bought the building and we started to cocreate a harmonic space in which we live together with other 13people. Some of those people have psychiatric diagnosis and together with a few animals as three goats, two dogs and a cat we are creating a community which lives together. We are buying food together, cook together and making art and artetherapeutic workshops, activities and meditations. Two people has psychiatric diagnosis, two are "survivors of psychiatric diagnosis" and two people are trained therapeuts. Another therapeuts are external, visiting us regulary. Slowly we are starting our community garden but thats not the main intention of this community. The main intention is to create a space in which the borders between "healthy people" and "people with psychiatric diagnosis" are erased. We have one large lounge for indoor activities, garden with space for outside activities (including teepee and old bus which we want to recreate to another living space). There is also an atelier and woodwork room. Two another rooms have spaces for guests for a sleepover. Due to cov-19 restrictions, we were not able to have many guests so far. But soon the restrictions will be softer and we will fully open and have more guests, it will be more open for creating workshops for groups or individuals or small cultural actions as festivals, bazars or theatre. We hope that by those actions the village which has around.

Key objectives for sustainability

What I see as a part of sustainability is that we create a lot of stuff on our own - we have our own workshop room for work with wood, so a lot of furniture is made by the people in community. We also recycle lot of materials or use those from thriftshops. At the same time we help each other time to time by giving a part time jobs - for example someone needed help on his project- rebuilding atic which requires more then just a little bit of help, but a lot of manual work - so those people from community who helped were paid by him etc. We have our own goats for milk and cheese, we are bartering eggs with our neighbours and veggie with another neighbour. So by those exchanges or small bussinesess we are also supporting a community of a village which has around just 100people. Another non profit organisation is providing us food, which is mainly from food banks from supermarket which would otherwise thrown away this food if not giving it to us. At the same time, because we live in a village, the rent prices are not so high as they are in bigger cities and because we bought the house, it is up on us how to go with prices. Thanks for the food which is for free for example is possible to leave someone here for few days who is in need. Our water is from well.

Key objectives for aesthetics and quality

There is a lot artists in the house and we combine a rough DIY style with some parts of nowdays popular boho style. To help create the parts of a building we also see as an arteterapeutic method.

Key objectives for inclusion

We are inclusive for people with psychiatric diagnosis - there are 3 people living in the house with diagnosis, another 2 people who healed themselfs from psychiatric diagnosis and another people with psychiatric diagnosis or serious life situations are time to time coming here for help - for consultations or just because they feel save and welcomed here.

Results in relation to category

We are a combination of a guesthouse and community for living, which wants also to provide a cultural space here. We have an old bus in front of a house, which we wants to renovate and use it as an gallery/concert or theatre space. We want to create a small festivals or markets in our garden and take the culture to village from which most of people are running away. At the same time we want to destigmatize people with psychiatric diagnosis by living together and help each other through humanity. After covid pandemic which affected a lot of people mentally or economically, we see that to cocreate a space to share is in need.

How Citizens benefit

As I said before, we are supporting each other in a village, the place is open for public, we have a space for creating workshops or lectures. The ivolvement is in cocreation and people from around can get involved by helping sometimes for money and sometimes for free, depends on a deal. Due to covid restrictons we weren´t that open for public yet and we have just small visits from outside, but as the restrictons in Czech republic are less tight, the ivolvement can slowly grow.