Alžbeta Brozmanová Gregorová, Associate Professor, Matej Bel University (Slovakia)

Alžbeta’s project stems from previous studies on specific problems and indicators of quality of life and level of social capital dating back to 2013. Since then, they have realized their research did not include women from marginalized groups, especially with different nationalities or ethnicities. This project’s primary research questions are: What are the needs of the specific marginalized groups of women living in Banská Bystrica city? What are their living conditions and their stories? How can these women communicate their experiences and expectations to others and be engaged in the community?

In the first stage, Alžbeta, in cooperation with the Healthy City Community Foundation, will identify - with the women involved in the activities from the previous project - specific groups of women that we call "invisible." In the second stage, they will invite representatives of these groups to the project to the different types of participatory and reflective dialog. They will co-develop the research process with women that will be part of the project. In the process, they hope to involve the social work students to facilitate the process.

The research aims not to focus only on understanding the needs of the specific marginalized groups of women living in Banská Bystrica city and their living conditions and stories. They want to understand better how the political, educational, social, economic, and familial context mediates women's lives and how we can bring the changes in these contexts. It is also focused on empowering women to communicate their experiences and expectations to others and be engaged in the community. In the context of the current situation connected with the war in Ukraine, they are planning to focus on women coming from Ukraine and Russia and provide them with the freedom to be innovative about their engagement.

The expected outputs of the project will affect: the women directly involved in the project (minimum 12), community partners involved in the project (minimum 3), women indirectly involved in the project (minimum 20), visitors to the exhibition (minimum 100), university teachers involved in the project (minimum 3), students involved in the project (minimum 5), exhibition of photovoice results (minimum 1), university textbooks (minimum 1), report from the project (minimum 1), public presentations of the report (minimum 1), and people involved in the public presentation of the report (minimum 40). The qualitative outcomes of the project are: a better understanding of needs, challenges, and lives of marginalized women in Banská Bystrica, measuring the report from research, a raised awareness about the needs, challenges, and lives of marginalized groups, measuring the exhibition and presentation of results, an increase in self-confidence, self-awareness, the resilience and engagement of women, more excellent access to resources, networking, new social contacts, developed linkages with various service providing institutions and social organizations, women will learn to defend their own interests through group actions an increased knowledge and skills of university students in community based, an increased awareness about the community-based research, and finally, publishing a university textbook.