The MU Faculty of Education opened a new café on the first day of the spring semester. The students of the faculty chose the name for it – Kafinet – and one of its functions will be to help people, in line with the mission of the faculty. It will be run by the non-profit association Práh jižní Morava, which helps people recovering from serious mental illness to find their way back into employment.
The café should also host various cultural events and serve as a meeting place for people from inside and outside the faculty. The opening of the café also signals the end of the construction work that has recently been ongoing in the Poříčí 31 building.
“When we were planning the library construction project years ago, we knew that we would not be able to build an area like this due to the limitations imposed by EU funding. We carried this debt – because that’s how we saw it – for quite some time, but now we are finally able to pay it off, thanks to the help and cooperation of many people,” says Jiří Němec, the dean of the faculty, who hopes the new café will become the centre of student life: “After all, students really need a meeting place like this.”
Until recently, the only eatery in the building was a snack bar, which has now been replaced by the café. The faculty has also installed vending machines and microwave ovens by the front entrance to give students the option of bringing their own food and heating it up. As part of the remodelling of the café, the adjoining hall was also refurbished and is now the perfect place for people to sit down and eat their homemade snack on their way to the library.
The modern interior of the café, with its wooden surfaces and yellow and blue colours, was designed by the architecture firm Čtyřstěn. The area is brightened up by a wall with a neon sign that says “Inspire” and is intended to remind students about their role as future teachers.
Visitors to the café can also look forward to enjoying paintings by artists from the faculty led by Petr Kamenický, which will complete the decor. The café will also expand in size in the summer thanks to the outdoor seating area planned for the courtyard.
And this is not the only café run by the non-profit Práh jižní Morava at Masaryk University: the Faculty of Law opened their own Café Práh de iure last September.