By: Sara Rančigaj /Nova24tv
In this edition of Jože Možina’ show on RTV, the conversation was attended by the founder of the Institute Iskreni and the weekly Domovina, Igor Vovk. He is an advocate and promoter of the traditional family, and he began his career through two years of practical training in marital and family therapy. According to him, the previous system interfered with the basic cell – the family. “The family is like the basic cell of society, if you loosen it, it is quickly manageable to all systems,” he explained. He further emphasised the areas in which they deal, in the field of attitudes towards children, abortion, family planning and sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The latter feels pressure from LGBT organisations and censorship in the media in all areas, and he only received attention when he spoke about abuses.
Igor Vovk, the founder of the Iskreni Institute, which also manages the portal and publishes the magazine Domovina, is an insightful interlocutor. He runs a non-profit organisation that supports and promotes the traditional family, with father, mother and children. He completed two years of practical training in marital and family therapy. These two years inspired him to explore relationships, work preventively with spouses and parents. Four years after the establishment of the Iskreni.net portal in 2007, with the support of friends who participated in the portal, he founded the Iskreni Institute. “And even then, Igor was full of innovation,” said padre Dr Kristjan Gostečnik.
According to the editor of the weekly Domovina, Tino Mamić, Vovk is also a media pioneer. While there was some pessimism among the media, he still dared and launched a new medium. “Not only that, he first made a family portal, then a daily information portal, now the weekly Domovina, and at the same time he started a television production,” Mamić explained.
The Iskreni Institute has become a family organisation that strives to support couples, spouses and parents. “We set up the portal primarily for honesty with ourselves. So, if everyone is honest with themselves, they will be able to develop, overcome fears and express love,” he explained the basic goal of the institution. Honesty, however, is also extremely important in a relationship, if the spouses are sincere, big shifts can happen. He sees himself as a persistent man, as he has gained this ability to persevere by working on the farm.
There are more and more challenges in the field of the basic cell – the family
According to him, the previous system interfered with the basic cell – the family. “The family is like the basic cell of society, if you loosen it, it is quickly manageable to all systems,” he explained. At work, he was most fascinated by how to impress people with his innovative idea and encourage them to support you. “Spouses who donate to our institution are also our biggest promoters,” he explained. In addition to therapies, Vovk also deals with seminars, especially in the field of compassionate parenting, which was placed alongside permissive upbringing, when children were no longer able to function due to boundaries. “Here, we encourage parents to empathise with the child, and we also give him a response in a way that the child feels and that we feel what he feels. If the parents understand what the child is feeling, they can also start talking to him.”
The Iskreni Institute also operates in a new field called “fertility care”. It is a programme where they help spouses plan their families. “Above all, our young mothers and counsellors guide how fertility works in their lives and what signs they can recognise that are potentially dangerous,” he said. Their programme focuses primarily on how to deal with couples’ infertility cases. “It is a systematic approach to tackling physical barriers and hormonal disorders that prevent a child’s healthy development.”
Defending family units required pressure from LGBT activists and disfavour from the media
According to him, that is why the movement, which also organises the annual Festival of Families, under the pressure of LGBT activists, is at the mercy of the media. “The purpose of the festival is to strengthen the value of one’s own family,” he explained. Among other things, they learn parenting skills and how to persevere in marriage. “Not to persist in the bad, the purpose of this is to wake up, to awaken the best that others can bring to life.” At first they were ignored, but then they systematised and wrote to all their patrons that they were against them, depriving them of their freedom, and that they would protest in front of their company.
Vovk observes that this kind of activism also gains strength with the support of multinationals. Regarding their attitude towards the LGBT community, he says: “We are absolutely not against homosexuals, but we are against the LGBT ideology, as the goals of the referendum on the Family Relations Act have shown that the goals are very unusual.” Vovk believes that this is an ideology that encourages intolerance towards dissenters: “We have noticed that with the idea of openness, plurality, we come to an authoritarian system in which you can no longer express your opinion; and if you say it, they censor you. Unfortunately, LGBT people have been hijacked by the leftist scheme in our country, and the biggest multinationals are also joining in.”
Certain topics are censored on social media
The example of Google and Facebook is familiar to all of us, words are actually censored. “You cannot post anymore, even paid not at all. If you post content they do not agree with, they simply delete it and no one finds you with a search engine anymore. We feel that this is an extreme censorship of the world format,” he explained. Exactly this situation led Vovk and his colleagues at Iskreni on the path of establishing their own media. The web portal has been operating for several years, and the weekly Domovina started publishing this spring. The vast majority of the money for their work is obtained through donations, and they decided on the project because their work has been too ignored in the past.
Vovk also spoke about the media fiasco against the Minister of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities Janez Cigler Kralj and the Iskreni Institute. “In the event of the failed candidacy of Karl Erjavec, they wanted to use the minister in the sense: he financed the matter and the organisation. But that is not true, he stepped down before he even became a minister,” he explained. I would like NGOs to be more closely monitored and their results checked. “That you are trying to alleviate the negative social, political or health consequences yourself,” he added.
The emotional consequences of abortion are completely ignored
Eight years ago, they also undertook research in the field of abortion, where they wanted to determine the attitude of Slovenes towards this. “An interesting finding of the research was that 90 percent of Slovenians believe that it would be necessary to consult with experts before abortion to explain all the consequences. One is medical and the other is emotional, which is completely neglected,” he stressed. Unfortunately, this research did not find its way in public, while a representative survey was conducted on a representative sample, this topic was not of interest to the people.
The institute subsequently received more media attention through the third area of Vovk’s work, which is the “It is enough” movement. The latter is intended to prevent sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and to help victims of abuse. Vovk says about this: “Once you listen and hear one victim, another victim, you are no longer the same person, and that actually changed me. It is about using evil…” According to him, taking action to heal this painful wound of the Church is too slow, as others are also suffering from some “rotten apples”. At the end of the interview, conducted by Dr Jože Možina, the guest also spoke about the great potential he sees in Slovenian youth. “We want to encourage all stakeholders /…/ to be what they are. In fact, only in this way will they be able to live life to the fullest and be happy. We encourage them to be active and speak out, despite the fact that sometimes the word will not be well received, but it is absolutely necessary at that moment so that one thing can be resolved.”