Our Staff: 

Alžbeta Brozmanová Gregorová – president, trainer

She works at the Faculty of Education at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. In her scientific, research, teaching and publishing activities she has long been involved in the issues of volunteering, service-learning, the third sector and NGOs, project creation and management and other topics. From 2002 to 2018 she was the head of the Volunteer Centre in Banská Bystrica and since 2011 she has been a member of the board of directors of the Platform of Volunteer Centres and Organisations. She has coordinated a number of international and national projects in the field of volunteering, such as the project for the development of quality standards for the management of volunteers, research on volunteering in Slovakia, the preparation of the Concept of Education and Training of Children and Youth for Volunteering and others. In practice, she also works as a project assessor, lecturer, consultant and as an accredited supervisor in the social field.


Alžbeta Frimmerová 
(Mračková) – vice president, project manager, trainer, consultant

She graduated in Sociology at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava. She has attended courses in volunteer management conducted by the Minnesota Association for Volunteer Administration in the USA, the National Volunteer Centre Hestia in the Czech Republic and the Association of Supervisors and Social Counsellors in Bratislava. Since 2002, she has been working at DS Vŕba at the St. Elizabeth Cancer Institute in Bratislava as a programme coordinator. Since 2006 she has been working on the development and promotion of volunteering in Slovakia, education and quality in volunteer management, creation of volunteer programmes and establishment and development of volunteer centres in Slovakia and Europe. She worked on the development of the Law on Volunteering. She was instrumental in the establishment of the Platform of Volunteer Centres and Organisations, the Bratislava Volunteer Centre and initiated the establishment of volunteer centres in Trnava and Trenčín.

 

Ing. Ida Adolfová (since 02.04.2019) - finance and project manager, European Solidarity Corps coordinator

She studied at the Faculty of Economics at the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica (2002) and during her studies she discovered volunteering, which became part of her life and later her professional practice. A three-month volunteer work in South Africa (2008) and a three-month study at the City University of New York (2013) had a great influence on her life and way of thinking. Since 2003, she has worked at the Healthy City Community Foundation, where she has been involved in the economics and management of the Foundation's projects and programmes. She has experience in volunteering both domestically and internationally, both as a volunteer and as a coordinator of volunteer programmes. She is active in the Volunteer Centre in Banská Bystrica, where she works as a coordinator of foreign volunteers, trainer, project manager of Erasmus+ projects and economist. Since 2018 she has been an economist in our organisation and since April 2019 has decided to spend more time working in the Platform, as she was attracted by the organisation's activities, projects and, last but not least, the people who work in the organisation. She sees it as a challenge and an opportunity to grow professionally and as a person and last but not least she wants to be part of positive changes in the field of volunteering in Slovakia.

 

Mgr. Dominika Hradiská (since 1.4.2019) - project manager, coordinator of the Heart in the Palm of Your Hand Award

She graduated in Psychology at the Faculty of Arts, University of Prešov. During her studies, she joined OZ Žabky, where she coordinated volunteers working with children and youth. On the basis of this experience and thanks to learning about the state of volunteering in the Košice Region, she became a founding member of the Volunteer Centre of the Košice Region in 2011 and later its chairwoman. In 2017, after her maternity leave, she joined the team of the Prešov Volunteer Centre, which she led for two years. She has experience in sending volunteers abroad and hosting foreign volunteers. During the whole period she participated in the activities of the Platform and monitored its activities as a statutory member of the member organisation. Since April 2019, she has been an active part of the Platform team, working mainly on quality standards for voluntary organisations and participating in current international projects.

 

Mgr. Jana Šolcová, PhD. - member of the board of directors, trainer

She has been a trainer for our accredited Management of Volunteers training course since 2016 and has worked on several international and national projects as a researcher and team member. She has also worked as a coordinator and trainer of volunteers for over 10 years. In her spare time as well as in her professional life, she focuses on working with children and youth. She participates in a series of educational activities aimed at increasing the competences of professionals, as well as volunteers working with children and youth. She works as a co-worker and committee member in several NGOs focusing on children and youth in various adverse social situations. Currently she is a coordinator in two organisations - Pathfinder Club (a scout type civic association with nationwide scope) and the Volunteer Centre Banská Bystrica with regional scope coordinating the Spojivko programme. Her pedagogical as well as scientific activity is also focused on innovative forms of social skills development, informal education of children and youth, theories of social work through activities at the Department of Social Work of the Faculty of Education of the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica.

 

Mgr. Gabriela Podmaková - member of the board of directors

She graduated in Ethnology and Extra-European studies at the Faculty of Arts of UCM in Trnava and UNY in Indonesia. She has been volunteering since elementary school and has experienced how volunteering may or may not work. She has worked at the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Bratislava, the Office for Slovaks Living Abroad, the School of Communication and Media, and the NGO PDCS. Currently she runs the Bratislava Volunteer Centre.

 

Mgr. Silvia Cochová, PhD. - member of the board of directors

She graduated in Environmental Education and completed her postgraduate studies in biodiversity conservation at the Technical University in Zvolen. After her PhD, she stayed on at the Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Science as a university lecturer, but eventually decided to work outside academia after maternity leave. Currently, she holds the position of director at the non-profit organisation Volunteer Centre in Banská Bystrica, where her years of experience in the third sector will bear fruit. She is directly involved with volunteering not only in her work, but has been an active volunteer in Slovak Scouting for over 20 years (she served for 6 years on the board of directors at national level).

 

Mgr. Veronika Kosková - activity coordinator

She graduated in Psychology at the University of Trnava and worked briefly in the field of counselling. She also tried working in the IT sector, where she managed HR processes and was responsible for project management. She lives and works in Banská Bystrica. During her maternity leave she became a part of the Mamina Maternity Centre Civic Association, through which she became more involved in volunteering. As a statutory officer of the Maternity Centre, she coordinated activities, volunteers and provided technical and organisational support. Since 2018, she has been a trainer at the Zippy Civic Association, where she trains teaching and professional staff in programmes to develop social skills in children. She stayed with volunteering after her maternity leave and is currently volunteering professionally at the Volunteer Centre in Banská Bystrica. In the Platform of Volunteer Centres and Organisations she is responsible for the coordination of educational activities and trainings.

 

Ing. Eva Ščepková, PhD. - PR manager

She graduated in Tourism at the Faculty of Economics at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica and in Personnel Management and Organisational Development at Masaryk University in Brno. During her studies at the university, she founded the EnviroFuture civic association, whose mission is to raise people's environmental awareness, improve public spaces and organise educational events. From 2013 to 2018 she worked at the Ekopolis Foundation, where she was responsible for PR and marketing. In 2016, she founded LINK CoWorking Banská Bystrica, a civic association dedicated to educating and networking entrepreneurial people.  Currently she is also working in the 365.labb community co-working centre in Banská Bystrica.