In 2013, Slovene Philanthropy turned to the Municipality of Ljubljana in search of a new space for work. The Municipality offered us a house in the Ljubljana borough of Vič, to use free of charge.
An almost entirely decrepit house was previously scheduled for demolition and unsuitable for use without a substantial investment in its renovation. The idea, which would be the solution for our expanding organization, became a community project with the name of Viška hiška (Vič house) after careful consideration.
We opened the renovated house, a new place of work for Slovene Philanthropy, in 2017. It couldn’t have been done without the following things: voluntary work, numerous corporate volunteering actions, donations, the help of many businesses, especially Javna razsvetljava (Public Lighting) Ljubljana and Strabag, the support of the Municipality of Ljubljana and students of architecture under the mentorship of professor Aleš Vodopivec and his team (Anja Planinšček, Gašper Medvešek and Katja Martinčič). 283 volunteers were included in the renovation, 2.130 hours of voluntary work was put in and all the goodwill and positive energy is now manifested in the functional, kind and open space for our work.
One of the corporate volunteering actions was organised together with AmCham (American Chamber of Commerce) and included the cooperation of the President of Slovenia and Ambassadors of: United States of America, Japan, Austria, Spain, Serbia, Kosovo, Romania, Brazil and Hungary.
We would like to thank the following businesses, which substantially contributed in service or materials: Železniško gradbeno podjetje Ljubljana, SIBAU, Žurbi Team, Elektro Ljubljana, Knauf Insulation, Xella porobeton SI, BAUHAUS, Knauf Ljubljana, Termo-tehnika, URSA Slovenija, AMS R&D, Lafarge Cement, ETI Elektroelement, Tem, Avtocenter Špan, Elektromaterial Lendava and Sam Trans.
We are also grateful for the businesses, which cooperated in different phases of renovation through corporate volunteering actions: AbbVie, GSK, Krka, Medis, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Pernod Ricard. Special thanks goes to the employees and volunteers of Slovene Philanthropy, who never missed a work action.
In 2018, we joined forces with the business and public sector – with Borzen and the Municipality of Ljubljana – again, this time in a socially responsible project of renovating for energy efficiency and setting up a solar power plant. We also included asylum seekers in the process of renovation and organised a training for them to work on a smaller facility near the house. We became a pilot example of good practice in April of 2019, and are now open to the interested public – to show them the benefit of a complete energy remediation and self-sufficiency. After the model of cooperation with the Faculty of Architecture, we also began collaborating with the Biotechnical Faculty in Ljubljana. Their students will create the plan of landscaping the surrounding of the house and then implement it in the next two years. They already made plans of making a summer kitchen and a smaller football field for the users of the Day Centre for Migrants.
We were able to finish the project with the support of donors Javna razsvetljava, BSP Energetska Borza, CRMT, GEN energija, GEN-i sonce, ELES, ENERGIJA PLUS, JUB, MENET PLUS, SEMANTIKA, SODO and UNISTAR, to which we are sincerely grateful.
