The People First Public Benefit Association has been running its nationally unique Accessible Pécs Database since 2018, showcasing genuinely accessible locations based on the personal experiences of experts with disabilities. Alongside the accessibility assessments it has been carrying out for years, the association now aims to involve the residents of Pécs and encourage them to take action. The first step was a joint project engaging students and staff of the University of Pécs.
As part of the Pécs City Civil Fund 2025 project, supported by the Municipality of the City of Pécs, the People First Public Benefit Association and the University of Pécs jointly called on university students and staff to take action. The aim of the initiative was to ensure that accessibility would not be seen solely as an institutional responsibility, but would become a shared cause, in which the people who use these spaces every day actively participate in shaping them. Participants identified barriers in university buildings, dormitories and the public spaces leading to them, documenting their findings with photographs and descriptions. An important requirement was that they should not simply report problems, but also propose solutions. In this way, the programme also strengthened self-advocacy, community responsibility and active civic participation: we should not just notice barriers, but take action to remove them.
The call resulted in a total of 53 relevant, assessable proposals from across all faculties of the University of Pécs. Even the organisers were surprised by the diversity and thoroughness of the submissions.
Some students systematically went through university buildings and produced detailed photographic documentation of the barriers they encountered. Others looked beyond the university itself and included locations around the city frequently visited by students. In one case, a vice-dean assessed the accessibility of their own faculty, while an enthusiastic team of staff members developed their own methodology and systematically collected problems and possible solutions within their faculty over a period of three months.
The proposals included assessments of the accessibility of a university ATM and a lift, as well as an idea to develop a map in Braille to help students and staff with visual impairments find their way around.
One of the most important outcomes of the project was precisely this change in mindset: participants no longer viewed accessibility as outsiders, but became active contributors to shaping their own environment.
The project’s innovative community-based approach could serve as a good practice for other cities and higher education institutions to follow. Pécs can once again set an example of how civil society expertise, institutional commitment and active public participation can be brought together to create a more inclusive environment.
The close partnership established between the University of Pécs and People First will not end with the conclusion of the project. Their shared goal is for the University of Pécs to become one of the most accessible higher education institutions in Hungary over time, and for the cooperation developed here to serve as an example for others to follow.
We consider it important to highlight what we stated at the end of our professional report to the Municipality of Pécs, which funded the project:
We would like to highlight the value of this project as a model and its adaptability to other civil society–university initiatives. As the project is also significant for Pécs’s city marketing and development towards greater accessibility, we ask the city to share information about it through its own communication channels.
We also ask for wider promotion of the Accessible Pécs Database. This nationally unique initiative, which the People First Public Benefit Association has been running in Pécs since 2018, could deservedly be one of the city’s sources of pride. We would be very pleased if the city leadership paid greater attention to this exemplary work than it currently does, and gave greater prominence to its value and significance in the city’s own communications.