Helping families remain together
The Society of Friends of Children from Children’s Homes Smile as a Gift is the oldest and largest non-governmental organization operating in the field of substitute care, assistance to families at risk in Slovakia, and assistance to victims of crime.
Supports children and young people in centers for children and families (CDR – former children’s homes), helps young people after leaving CDR. Helps families in difficult life situations to stay together. Builds centers to help families in need and Affordable social rental housing. Educates those interested in fostering and accompanies foster families. Networks and educates experts, professionals and volunteers. Provides assistance to victims of crime in the form of specialized professional assistance to particularly vulnerable victims.
We help families in need
We alleviate poverty, address housing issues, and through long-term support, we seek solutions to improve the family situation so that children can stay with their parents.
We are building aid centers
We are co-founders of a network of family support centers, we participate in their development, and we are looking for ways to further independent and affordable housing for the many families who live in them.
Affordable social rental housing
It is a unique integrated model of real prevention and solution to the social challenge of homelessness of families with children. This model is based on the housing-first approach and its type of communal housing (concentrated housing).
We prepare and accompany foster parents
Preparation takes place through the PRIDE program. Target groups are foster parents, caregivers and professional staff and also biological parents who want to develop their parental skills.
We support children and youth in CDR
We are their friends, we develop their talents, we support their studies with scholarships and a good start to independent life.
We expand family circles
We involve the extended family, relatives and other close and important people in the life of the at-risk child in planning and addressing their adverse life situation.
We network and educate
professionals and all those involved who work with endangered and abandoned children, as well as volunteers who care for children in centers for children and families or in foster families.
We are doing everything we can to help these families at risk and to allow children to stay with their parents.
From 1975 to the present
Few people know that Úsmev ak dar was founded by two BSP drivers Mirko Nešpor from ČS television in Bratislava, who took under their auspices the Children’s Home in Holíč, where one of their colleagues grew up.
Since 1975, they have organized various trips, camps, carnivals, sports olympiads and Christmas gatherings for children. In 1982, these drivers, led by Július Hron, organized the FIRST Christmas benefit concert, Smile as a Gift, in Istropolis in Bratislava, which has been held regularly every year since then and is broadcast on television at Christmas.
Since its inception, Smile as a Gift has undergone many changes. In 1991, Jozef Mikloško (known under the nickname Jogo) founded the civic association Society of Friends of Children from Children’s Homes Smile as a Gift and successfully continued this vision with an open heart, i.e. to bring more smiles to children’s lives.
Our philosophy
We want to protect the best interests of the child from conception to adulthood.
We consider the child’s primary interest to be the opportunity to grow up in his or her own functional family. If the child does not have such an opportunity, the most suitable solution for him or her is to grow up with relatives. If this option is not realistic, the original family can be replaced by a substitute family in the form of adoption or foster care. If this alternative cannot be fulfilled, it is necessary to provide the child with care in a facility that will create an environment for him or her that is as close to a family as possible.
Our activities and work with families and children are based on the development of parenting skills, knowledge of the needs, feelings and experiences of children and their unconditional acceptance, development and recognition and strengthening of their identity, as well as respect for the biological family of children. We do all this in accordance with the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, approved by the UN General Assembly on November 20, 1989, as well as for the protection of the family and its mission in accordance with the Charter of the Rights of the Family.
