We would like to present to you the next Newsletter of our CODE international project, to keep you informed about the progress of the project. This project aims to promote awareness, awareness of people with disabilities and innovation in the banking sector.

The training material for people with disabilities is almost ready, the development of a platform and an app to support independent banking is underway and will then be tested by the target group.

For more information, see the short Newsletter by clicking here: EN_CODE_Newsletter3_April 2025 (2)

Before we start working together in our international FairCare project, we wanted to have a friendly, interactive online chat with the Hungarian Advisory Group. We will be working together for almost three years and we believe that their work will be the most important in this international project.

The Hungarian Advisory Group consists of 10 members from 7 organisations, to our great pleasure not only from Pécs, but also from Győr and Szeged. Similar advisory teams have been set up in each country, representing the three target groups of the project: people in need of long-term care (in our case, people with disabilities and the elderly), family members-friends-relatives, and institutional staff.

Their role will be to give their opinions at every phase of the project, to influence the progress of the project and to put the “Nothing about us without us” principle into practice with their ideas.

Not everyone was able to attend our first Hungarian team meeting, but we had a very nice chat and we will meet again soon, this time with everyone. The professional work has already begun, and important opinions and ideas have been expressed. We can already see that this is going to be a great team and a pleasure to work together! 🙂

On 16 April, we sent out the questionnaires identifying the needs of our project target groups to the Hungarian Advisory Group for their comments. We want to make sure that everything is clear, that we have thought of everything and that it is sufficiently accessible.
The questionnaires to be sent out will be finalised taking into account the opinions of the Advisory Groups in each partner country.

Thank you for today’s meeting Hungarian team! 🙂

Read more about the FairCare project here: FairCare project

The first Newsletter of our FairCare Erasmus+ project has been published and we are very pleased to inform you about the international cooperation.

You can read about what this cooperation is all about. Briefly, you can meet the partners who are working together in this project to develop independent living in Hungary, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain and Cyprus.

We have also written a few sentences about our first personal meeting in Barcelona, where we launched this ambitious and very important gap-filling project.
For the first time, everyone who needs to participate in the development of independent living is involved:
everyone who needs long-term care,
family members and carers,
and the innovative thinking staff of institutions.

Advisory teams have been set up in all countries, including Hungary, with representatives from all the mentioned sides. In Hungary, the team not only includes participants from Pécs, but also excellent organisations from Szeged and Győr. The Advisory team gives its opinion on everything, representing the principle “Nothing about us without us!”.

The Newsletter:

You can read the newsletter in pdf here: Fair Care Newsletters 1

Read more about the FairCare project here: https://peoplefirst.hu/en/blog-post/faircare-erasmus-international-project/

Follow us on Facebook too!
People First Association: https://www.facebook.com/PeopleFirstHun
FairCare project: https://www.facebook.com/groups/523950267376170

Is there still a justification for segregation today?!
Are there specific problems for people with disabilities, or are all the problems needed for independent living a common social phenomenon?

These were the questions we explored at our second Disability and Independent Living discussion on 18 March 2025 at the House of Civic Communities. We were delighted to be able to repeat the extremely active and inspiring discussion we had last time. Proving how much there is a need for similar conversations, both in terms of the topic and the circle of participants. Such a gathering of all actors involved in the development of independent living – people with disabilities, family members/supporters and innovative thinking institutional staff – to meet and learn from each other’s experiences is unprecedented.

At the current discussion, the circle of participants was enlarged, and Szilvia Bognár, the civil councillor for social relations of the Mayor’s Office of the City of Pécs, accepted our invitation. On behalf of the press, we thank Pécs TV and Dunántúli Napló /Bama for their visit. It was a rare occasion, and therefore a special pleasure for us, that Szilvia Bognár and the press officer of the Dunántúli Napló stayed for the whole discussion, actively participating and enriching the exchange of ideas with very important thoughts.

After the presentation of our Erasmus+ Indeed project, funded by the European Union, which made the series of talks possible, an exciting part of the discussion followed. At the last workshop, several of our disabled peers raised the point that they had benefited from segregated education and that they would like to see a place for it in today’s inclusive world. In the ongoing forward discussion that started on this, we concluded that segregation as a concept has outlived its time. Yet, if we listen carefully, it is present in our world today, and not always in a harmful way. In other words, the team does not consider segregation itself to be useful, nor does it wish for its return, but it has a place in some forms in the world today. Whether it will be the result of an evolution and disappear or be transformed, the future will decide. However, the topic was very inspiring and the team would like to pursue it, possibly with the involvement of teaching/education professionals.

Another topic of discussion was whether people who want to live independently in today’s world face the same problems as people with disabilities. Going around the topics of work, housing, health care, transport, separation from parents, the need to know own rights, the discussion team concluded that yes, basically the problems and expectations are the same. However, in some segments, people with disabilities need special attention and special help. But it is important to note that although accessibility came out as a specific need in each of the topics, it is still useful for everyone who wants to live more comfortably.

Our Indeed project will soon end with a very useful Guide, available also in Hungarian for everyone. It will provide useful guidance on how to generate similar local conversations on developing independent living, in addition to the methods and experiences of the participating partner countries.

The project is a continuation of the Erasmus+ FairCare project we have already launched, in which we are broadening the target group and discussing the importance of independent living with all people who need long-term care. In the same way involving all the parties who need to be present in the development of independent living. Here we will also develop training materials and set up advisory teams of participants from the three sides in each country to implement the “Nothing about us, without us” principle.

Follow us on Facebook, be with us, think with us!

We held the last in-person meeting of our Indeed international project on 11-12 March 2025 in Milan, Italy.

The Erasmus +Indeed project aims to give partner countries an insight into local methods and specificities of independent living, to learn from each other and, if possible, to improve their own capacities in their countries.
It was a very useful and enjoyable project and we learned a lot from our German, Slovak and Italian partners.

The current meeting gave us an insight into Italian inclusive schooling. We saw a very modern inclusive school and its opposite. We visited a pizzeria run by people with autism, very successfully (PizzAut).
We worked on the upcoming Guideline which encourages the organisation of discussions on independent living. And we held a very interesting and useful evaluation of how each partner team experienced the opportunities in each country, the programmes presented, and how they evaluated the personal meetings.
It was important to hear what each partner will definitely implement in their own country.

This project is an excellent basis for our project to explore the issue in more detail (FairCare).

On 18 March 2025, you are invited to a very exciting discussion at Indeed, where we are already involving decision-makers and multipliers. We would like to generate some discussion, even debate, on two interesting topics. We are still waiting for registrations for the workshop: https://www.facebook.com/events/1150852777050908

It is great to see that we have more and more forums to talk about independent living.
But let’s face it, most of the time it’s people with disabilities talking to each other. Sometimes family members and helpers join in, which is a great achievement. But the presence of institutional staff doesn’t usually happen.

The People First Association, as part of its international Indeed project, organised such a discussion workshop in Pécs today, with the participation of all those interested in developing independent living.
Family members, full-time helpers, people with disabilities living independently and not fully independently, and innovative thinking staff/managers of institutions shared their opinions, experiences and change ideas at today’s good-mood discussion.

An important part of the workshop was to think and talk through the question “how can you make a change, what will you do differently immediately after the workshop?”
You can see what we came up with in a poster (of course, we talked in much more detail about certain topics).

The conversation will continue! Even within the Indeed project, and then we will continue in more depth, with a joint needs assessment and mutual learning in our FairCare project.

Thank you very much to everyone who was present today. Follow our Facebook page and join us next time!

You can find the posters in PDF here: Indeed poster EN

We held the first in-person meeting of our FairCare international project in Barcelona and Corbera recently.
This project aims to develop self-determination in the field of long-term care.

The target area is also a gap, but the major focus for us in this project will be on motivating all the target groups involved to engage in real, genuine close cooperation. That is what we feel is really needed, so that people in need of care, their families and carers, and professional staff can learn from each other and get to know each other’s needs.

At the first meeting, there were so many things we wanted to discuss, and we were so eager to get to work, that many of the basic questions were left out. We should of course come back to these as soon as possible.

Partners will soon start concrete work involving all relevant actors in each country.
Follow us, the People First Association will be with you soon. We want as many of you as possible to get involved in this project!

Read more about the project here: FairCare international project

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PeopleFirstHun

Every year, so this year too, we’ve summarised what we’ve done, what events and projects we’ve been involved in, what impact we’ve had locally, nationally and internationally.
It is important for us that you know about everything we do, that we can be visible and transparent, because we work for the public, for you. While of course as an association we also try to be with and for each other as much as possible.

Read our short report on what’s been going on this year:
https://peoplefirst.hu/en/news/we-speak-in-one-language-in-one-principle-report-on-2024/

100 locations are already listed in our unique Barrier-free Pécs Database!

We are very proud that in Pécs we have been able to run a free database in Hungarian and English since 2018, which presents REALLY accessible places.

How did it start? Let’s remember, because it feels so good.
The idea was raised by members of our association that it would be useful to have some kind of list of Pécs, where we could collect the truly accessible places. This would be very important, because as a disabled person you have to plan everything in advance: where can you get to, from where, is there any help, is there an accessible toilet, etc. etc. even etc. etc. and more etc.

Very soon, our IT engineer member joined the idea, thinking not in a list but in a database. Thinking about it further, our president thought not of a database of our own, but of a database available to all. Moreover, as this is a significant step towards the development of accessible tourism, it should be free of charge, and not only in Hungarian, but also in English.

We had to be prepared for everything.
An inspired team of our members was formed to undertake the mapping of the sites, the coordination, the fundraising.
We have organised training courses with the help of our member rehabilitation engineer. Then, having accessibility, legal and communication knowledge, we wrote the Methodology of the Accessible Pécs Database (for us it’s just APA – pun in Hungarian, meaning dad). What, how, with whom, which sites, what is the most important, checklist for exploration, how to pay the people working on it, marketing to make more people aware of it…..These were and still are the guidelines.
Since then, training has continued, exploration has become professional, as has IT support, thanks to the involvement of a new specialist member.

It was an important realization for us that what is good for people with disabilities is equally important for the elderly, families with strollers and small children, even people with wheeled bags, and anyone for whom accessibility is more convenient!

And we started.
We must admit, it was with great excitement that we entered the doors of one of the most famous restaurants in Pécs, the Nana, on 13 February 2019. If we didn’t immediately meet a very willing, supportive, cooperative welcome there, there might not have been a continuation. But the first venue gave us the impulse.

Afterwards, we also looked around Pécs, as both the residents of Pécs and tourists make excursions, and we couldn’t miss the exciting places nearby.

And we are now on 30. November 2024, when the hundredth site was presented. This is Cutler Gym, a fitness room that can be used by disabled people.

The exploratory team members were changed from time to time, because although it may not look like it from the outside, it is a very tiring and responsible job.

We have since spread the Database as best practice in international projects. It has been placed on the official website of the city of Pécs. We made video clips on our Youtube channel about the importance of accessibility for all. We have become members of the Pécs Tourism Round Table, where accessible tourism is our field. We give presentations at Hungarian and international meetings, conferences, at the university, where everyone can get to know our Database.

We are very proud of the professional team at People First who have created and maintain this database:
– a professionally trained exploratory team who are themselves people with disabilities,
– the IT team, who have created and professionalised the database and even maintain it when it needs it
– coordinators, who write applications, organise the tasks, upload data, pictures, maps, make it accessible for everyone, and manage the administration
– site owners who understand and feel that this is important, that it is worthwhile on both sides
And we are very proud of our users, people with disabilities, elderly people, families with small children, who already know that if they use the Barrier-free Pécs Database they will get guaranteed and up-to-date information.

We really value your feedback, which you can post in the “write your review” section below each site! Thank you for your own experiences so far in Hungarian, English and German.

If you feel you can support our activities, we are grateful. You can do this by using the “Adományozok” (Donate) button on our website, or by contacting us at info@peoplefirst.hu

We will certainly continue to apply, raise money to maintain the Barrier-free Pécs Database, add new sites and keep the old ones updated. 🙂