A community space that supports meditation and religious practices, named Silent Room, has been created at UPMS, which is available to all students and can be used freely. The Silent room can be visited from the 24th of October.
The idea of creating a Silent Room dates back to the summer of 2020. It was then that the Student Service Department received a request from the English-German Student Council (EGSC) that the faculty's international student community needed a quiet and secluded space that also supported religious practice, where they could pray, meditate or find a quiet moment. The initiative has now been realized and with the support of the Student Service Department, the EGSC project will start on a pilot basis.
The goal of UPMS is to create a community space where the possibility of meditation, reflection, prayer, and quietness can become available to all students, regardless of religious, ideological, or ethnic affiliation. The purpose of the Silent Room is to provide an opportunity to meet the cultural and religious needs of students, thereby strengthening the efforts of the PotePillars Well-Being concept, and promoting the creation of an inclusive, diverse, learning and working environment.
The room is located on the 3rd floor of the old Main Building of the medical faculty and can be accessed via the back stairs (to the left of the Language Department). It is available for students from Monday to Thursday from 7:30 a.m to 3:00 p.m and on Fridays from 7:30 a.m to 1:30 p.m. Of course, it is also possible to use the Silent Room outside of these time slots, but a reservation must be sent in advance to the email address egsc@aok.pte.hu. Students can pick up the key at the EGSC office.
Concerning the project, the Student Service Department and the EGSC want to collect users’ experiences, so the project will initially operate on a pilot basis until the end of the 2022/23 academic year. If the experience is positive, it will be extended, and the Silent Room will become one of the faculty's permanent services.
„This room is an inclusive and welcoming space for the students of the UP Medical School of diverse religious, spiritual and non-religious backgrounds and practices. We are confident that this innovative initiative, the first of its kind at UPMS among the Hungarian universities, will be the basis of a long-term project” - can be read in the joint statement of the Student Service Department and EGSC.