Educational events of the Methodological Center for Slovaks living abroad

The Methodological Center for Slovaks living abroad was established on January 1, 1993, and is currently the only specialized institution in Slovakia that continuously focuses on the education of children from Slovak schools and educational centers abroad. In the first decade, the center specialized in organizing didactic courses for teachers of Slovak schools abroad, and since 2008, it has also organized educational summer camps for children from Slovak primary schools abroad. This model has been organizationally and qualitatively innovated by the center since 2011 in collaboration with experts from educational departments across Matej Bel Univesity. Since 2016, the center has begun to organize educational events for Slovak educational centers in Western Europe and overseas. By 2025, more than 15,000 participants will have attended the educational events of the Methodical Center for Slovaks living abroad. So far, we recorded a record number in 2010, welcoming 1114 participants.

Online education is a separate chapter. The idea originated in 2020 when children couldnot travel to Slovakia. In both 2020 and 2021, we provided professional support and realized 3 sessions of online education each year, including the preparation of didactic films, which took the form of short documentaries in 2021. At the same time, our professional collaborators created a database of didactic materials. All materials are freely available online on the website Didaktické materiály | Metodické centrum pre Slovákov žijúcich v zahraničí | Univerzita Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici.

Since 2022, we have been conducting regular online training every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month, and we are recording great interest across all time zones. In 2024, 174 participants from 29 countries from various corners of the world took part in the online Saturdays.

Scientific Activities of the Methodological Center

For more than ten years, the Methodological Center has gradually developed into an expert workplace focused on research in the history and culture of Slovaks living abroad. With the expanding expert activities, participation in professional conferences also grew. We will mention at least the Research of Folk Dances of Slovaks in Serbia, who created a rare indigenous culture in these areas over more than 250 years. Another ethnological monograph was created at the request of Slovaks in Ilok, Croatia. The result of several years of analysis of the acquired materials, studying professional publications, and consulting with experts in the field of layering developmental periods led to the creation of the monograph in 2022 by Zuzana Drugová: They wear it like countesses... Traditional clothing of Slovaks in Ilok. We are gradually publishing the results of our professional activities on the website ODBORNÉ MATERIÁLY | Metodické centrum pre Slovákov žijúcich v zahraničí | Univerzita Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici.

Project activities of the Methodological Center

The first of the Erasmus+ projects was the project Self-identification in a multi-ethnic environment as a means of ethnic tolerance – JaSom (Erasmus+ 2019 – 2022, 2019-1-SK01-KA201-060682). The result of the already completed project is Didactic materials utilizing elements of Slovak traditional culture from the local environment, which are freely available for general use in expatriate communities. Výsledky projektu | Projekt Erasmus + | Univerzita Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici (umb.sk). During the project, a comprehensive survey was also conducted among teachers from the project countries. The questionnaire contained three main areas of questions: Slovak language in the domestic environment; Education about dialects; Preparation of cultural programs. The results of the questionnaire may also be important for broader use in setting the focus of other forms of education and are available on the website: Výsledky dotazníka 2021 | Výsledky projektu | Univerzita Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici (umb.sk).

We presented the project at the International Conference AMLI 2021 at the University of Sussex. AMLI = APPROACHES TO MIGRATION, LANGUAGE & IDENTITY. At the international conference, we presented the project in English, with authors PhDr. Zuzana Drugová from MC UMB for Slovaks living abroad in Banská Bystrica and prof. Dr. Jasna Uhláriková from the Department of Slovak Studies at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia presenting an online contribution: Minority language as one of the factors of self-identification - Jazyk minority ako jeden z faktorov sebaidentifikácie. The project competed in the European Language Label 2022 competition, which is meant for Erasmus+ projects, and out of more than 130 submitted projects, it advanced to be one of the top 6 projects in Slovakia.

Continuing the project JaSom has currently led to the realization of the project MySme - Minority Culture as a Means for Self-Identification and Strengthening Inclusion in a Multiethnic Environment (Erasmus+ 2022 – 2025 / 2022–1-SK01–KA220-SCH-000087502). The partners of the project remain the Slovak Cultural Center in Našice, Croatia, and the Theoretical Lyceum of Jozef Kozáček in Bodonoš, Romania. New partners, for whom this participation is their first in Erasmus+ projects, are the Slovak Vojvodina Theatre in Báčsky Petrovec, Serbia, and the Slovak School, Kindergarten, and Children Ensemble Margarétka in Paris, France. The result of the project will be 40 educational films focused on natural forms of communication in the Slovak language for children from minority environments abroad – taking suitable cultural elements from each environment as examples: France – elements of culture, history, and nature of Slovakia, especially directly from Slovakia – topics that are necessary to enhance education in the Slovak educational center abroad. Croatia – elements of the indigenous minority culture that operate in minority environments with an advanced degree of assimilation as motivational factors for interest in education in the Slovak language – based on the example of folklore ensembles. Romania – elements of indigenous traditional culture in connection with cooperation between the youngest and oldest generation in an enclaved form of minority environment. Serbia – elements of minority culture based on the example of theater, utilizing didactic methods for education in schools with an emphasis on elements of creative drama. MySme | Metodické centrum pre Slovákov žijúcich v zahraničí | Univerzita Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici

In the same project period, the Methodical Center is the main researcher of another project: Innovation of educational methods as a means of inclusion of minority members – BIBLIO (Erasmus+ 2022 – 2025 / 2022–1-SK01–KA220-HED-000087502). The partners of this project are the Research Institute of Slovaks in Hungary in Békéscsaba, Hungary, and the Slovak Cultural Club in Bački Petrovac, Serbia. During the project, each partner organization organized one educational event each year, most often in the form of an international conference combined with a workshop – always on a topic that the individual partners deemed necessary for education in the field of the history and culture of the Slovaks. A secondary outcome of the project is an online bibliographic database containing 6,261 entries on the history and culture of the Slovaks from all project countries. The database will be available online on the Methodical Center website after the project's completion and thus will be accessible to anyone who seeks information before starting their professional research It will seek orientation in the previously published works. An easily accessible and understandable form of the database will also simplify things for those who are often discouraged from research by complex logins and demanding search engines of individual libraries. Biblio | Metodické centrum pre Slovákov žijúcich v zahraničí | Univerzita Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici

The Methodological Center for Slovaks living abroad of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, thanks to its more than 30-year history and the aforementioned activities and projects, currently has contacts with Slovak centers all over the world, with which it actively collaborates.