In the Czech Republic countryside, students, interns, volunteers and instructors gather to “assist individuals in their desire to follow Jesus Christ and positively impact their lives, careers, homes and communities.”
That is the mission of Cumorah Academy.
The academy is a non-profit, private school, where students often attend for one impactful semester.
The courses are taught in English and aim to help develop leadership skills in those who attend so they can prepare to lead in their families, church, professions and communities.
Cumorah Academy founder Patrick Sedivy said he and his wife and co-founder, Allyse Sedivy, both had a spiritual prompting in 2005 to start an academy in the Czech Republic.
Sedivy’s parents had defected from Czechoslovakia in 1969. Years later, both Sedivy and his wife served missions in the Czech Republic and fell in love with the land.
Sedivy said about 10 years after the two served missions there, they moved to the Czech Republic with their children for about two and a half years. That is where they both felt the prompting to start a school.
Years later, in 2015, they founded Cumorah Academy, where students could attend for a high impact semester of learning personal development and leadership skills.
Sedivy said leadership skills are not always the focus in traditional education, but they are still necessary skills to have.
“Everybody, all businesses, employers are looking for people who have leadership, communication and other soft skills, but those things typically aren’t taught at school… and everybody needs to know it,” Sedivy said.
Along with the leadership courses, the students also have community service project assignments.
Chief Operations Officer Kamila Uberto Fullmer said all the students each belong to one of five houses at the school. Each house is responsible for a service project when they are assigned.
These projects include teaching English, working at a food bank and organizing libraries.
Fullmer said these service opportunities strengthen the friendships between the students.
“Even though one person can help a lot, this feeling and this movement of this entire group of people doing this together also helps them to strengthen their bonds,” she said.
Many of the students attending Cumorah Academy are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but there are also many non-member students as well who share similar beliefs. Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ is not a requirement to attend.
“We have one selection criteria that is more important than anything else, and that is simply: how badly does a potential student want to make changes in their life?” Sedivy said.
The academy now hosts young adults ages 18 to 33 years old from all over the world. While many of the students are from Europe, the school also hosts several students from Latin America, as well as some from the United States, Africa and Asia.
The academy provides all meals, and the tuition costs as much as the particular student can pay, making the academy a true non-profit organization.
There are also several internship opportunities at the academy in the fields such as marketing, English, business and wellness.
BYU-Idaho student Kinsley Price is the emotional and wellness intern at Cumorah Academy. Her role at the academy is to help students stay healthy both mentally and physically. The academy’s goal is to prevent mental health issues in students, which Price said she has done by becoming a friend to all the students there.
She said the internship has helped her find guidance for her life and recommends others also apply to join Cumorah Academy if they are seeking guidance in their lives as well.
“This truly is a place that if you’re not sure where you want to go with your life, you can come here and reflect upon that. I think that this is a place of guidance and direction and a safe space to voice your opinions and truly feel like you have an opportunity to be heard,” Price said.
BYU-Idaho student Kailey Smith is a business intern at Cumorah Academy. She teaches a business class to 12 students, where her primary objective is to help each of them start and run a small business. Smith said since she and all the students live together at the school, she has formed friendships with them. The students like the class so much that Smith said teaching it has also increased her confidence.
She said the internship has changed her life in many ways.
“Cumorah was everything I needed in an internship and a lot of things I didn’t know that I wanted,” Smith said.
For more information about Cumorah Academy, visit their website here.