Our most important event in 2023 is that our association has become a public benefit status. Why is this a big change? On the one hand, because from now on we will open up many of our (we think exciting) activities “to the public”, i.e. we will not only offer them to our members. On the other hand, many tender opportunities open up for us newly. And thirdly, supporting a public benefit organization is more suitable for a company or corporation in several respects. We hope that the latter will be possible in a novel framework in 2024. We are already working on it – not alone, of course, but in partnership.

The thinking in partnership has not changed, in fact it has strengthened in us. It is not easy to work as an NGO today in the socio-economic environment. But if we work together, we can still achieve much more results, a larger target group, a stronger impact.

Not only do we sustain ourselves, but we also build strategies, apply, grow and strengthen. In 2023, we took a deep breath and applied for the first time independently for the implementation of an international project, of which we are also coordinators. A serious task, a lot of new experience, again great new partnerships.

We are increasingly trying to communicate to our members that they are the best experts in their field, not others. They do not have to wait for solutions from outside, but they have to take the initiative, connect and do something for the betterment of their lives and environment.
Fortunately, there are many opportunities for this in Pécs. Whether to have an effective say in the affairs of the municipality or to jointly define goals, with funds that can be spent jointly. Even regular meetings with other organizations, experts, city leaders. Whether it’s the ability to report problems or make the city more accessible.
And there is our Barrier-free Pécs Database, the center of our activities. With this, we help a lot for those arriving from Pécs, Hungary and abroad in predictability and barrier-free tourism.
We felt too the general passivity this year. But People first, so we keep rolling and doing what we already know.

What we’ve been doing in 2023, showing you some numbers as usual:

• We wrote or participated in the writing of 8 applications. These are both large international and smaller domestic tenders. 4 won, 1 is still waiting for the result.
• Our membership could participate in international and domestic projects, learn about exciting good practices, build relationships, work, earn money, travel, even practice a foreign language, help with technical developments for people with disabilities.
• We have built an international People First network.
• We campaigned for 1% personal income tax (Hungarian option for NGOs) and barrier-free holiday destinations.
• We organized international meetings, trainings, conferences in Pécs – and how difficult it was to find accessible restaurants in the city center! 🙁
• We continued to update the Barrier-free Pécs Database with new locations and continuously followed the changes of older locations.
• We actively participate in local civil life, thanks to the programs of the Local Equal Opportunities Program, the Civil Forums, the Pécs Tourism Roundtable, the civil meetings with ambassadors visiting Pécs, the Decide with us! participatory budget, Civil Selfie (and we must have forgotten some of them now)
• Our BeFogadó/InnClusive community space in Balokány Park is still open to our members and the citizens of Pécs with programs, discussions and trainings.
• We educate ourselves and build relationships, we also attend trainings, conferences, discussions, partner meetings.
• We had a fantastic time with Style for everyone! fashion show, which was partly organized by us. Such a fashion show is sure to be needed, where models with disabilities show their beauty, at the same time joining forces and encouraging cooperation between companies and shops of Pécs.
• The Barrier-Free Tourism Day in Orfű (near Pécs) was not missed this year either. We continue to be organizers, members of the organizing committee and enthusiastic participants of the national event.
• We work with young people, give lectures, welcome university students, help write theses.
• We go to concerts, exhibitions, fashion shows, festivals….

Do you like what we do? Come with us, get involved! Our Hidden City Tor-Tour, our BeFogadó/InnClusive community space, our projects are waiting for you… and so do we.😍 Become our member, let’s push the cart of 2024 together!
Contact us here: info@peoplefirst.hu
Check out the Projects, News and Barrier-free Pécs menus of our website, and of course the rest!

Happy New Year 2024! 🎉

There is a very clever form of support for NGOs, the https://adjukossze.hu/ run by NIOK. Here, registered civi organizations can launch various fundraising online campaigns, for which they receive all the support from NIOK.
If you click on the beautiful pink ADOMÁNYOZOK (DONATE) button on our website, you will be taken here too.

Every year, NIOK asks us to report on the progress and results, which are automatically received by donors through the button. After all, it is important not only to receive, but also to give – news, reports on how and for what we used the generous help.

Here we tell you what we have achieved in 2022 with the help of the ADOMÁNYOZOK (DONATE) button, i.e. Adjukössze, where our Barrier-free Pécs and Hidden City Tor-Tour projects are supported. (https://peoplefirst.hu/en/projects/)

Thank you here and we are counting on you in the future!

We started a smooth road

For us, a smooth road is primarily an barrier-free road 🙂

A lot has happened in 2022 that gives us cause for hope. We continue to work on social inclusion, primarily on broadening and understanding accessibility. We continue to see that Hungarian society is helpful, but there is a huge lack of information. Our job is to plug this information hole.

Let’s see what we’ve been able to achieve in 2022, thanks to the Adjukössze Page and your support.

We were able to hold many Hidden City Tor-Tours in Pécs. (What is the Tor-Tour of the Hidden City?)
We consider this to be one of the best sensitizations, because instead of persuasion or lecture, we simply walk, talk cheerfully, tell exciting stories about Pécs, and give the opportunity to try out a wheelchair or white cane, that is, to understand what life with disabilities is like.

Among the 2022 Hidden City Walks, the visit to Pécs of the National Tourism Consultants stands out, who specifically wanted a Hidden City Walk with us.

It is important for us that the results of the Hidden City Walks were also recognized at the Civil Award event, as we reached the final of the event and stood proudly on stage (although rolling up there in a wheelchair was a Mount Everest experience).

In September, on the World Tourism Day, the city of Pécs ordered a public Hidden City tour from us, which we were very happy to hold.

We thought that if we already had such a well-established, useful project, we would distribute it. For the first time in our lives, we set out to write an international tender, where our association also assumes the coordinating role. So we started organizing the Visegrad Fund competition, in which we offer our Hidden City Tor-Tour as a best practice to Slovak and Polish partners.

We experienced similar excitement with our unique urban barrier-free database, the Barrier-free Pécs Database. (And what is the Barrier-free Pécs Database?)
A lot of positive things happened here as well, but we admit that maintaining, expanding and updating it is hard work and a constant challenge. We need constant supporters, as such a database cannot remain without care and expansion! 

Good news:
On our entire website, including in the database, we captioned all the pictures for our blind friends. We immediately created descriptions for pictures, photos and illustrations in three ways. We also involved our university and high school volunteers in this, for them it was certainly a lifelong sensitization.

We renewed our “sticker team” carrying out site excavations and made funding more transparent. We can still only pay HUF 3000 per person for each exploration, which is very little, and we admit that it is not really motivating, which is why we need your support. The people who carry out the exploration are people with disabilities, this is a source of education, work and money for them.

We’ve strengthened the support option on the Adjukössze page with a campaign called “Duplatét/Double Rate”. In this winning tender, we undertook to collect HUF 250,000 for the development of the Accessible Pécs Database. If the amount is collected, the tenderer will double this amount. And with you WE SUCCEEDED! 🙂
Thank you very much once again. Thus, we were able to discover new locations, update some older ones, update the IT side of the database.
I wish we had such a large amount of help every year, the database would improve greatly!

Good and moderately good news mixed:
We are constantly consulting and negotiating to find constant help in maintaining and developing the Barrier-free Pécs Database. Since we believe that this is primarily beneficial for Pécs, we contacted the City Hall and concluded a Cooperation Agreement with the city marketing and tourism departments in February 2022. We thought it was a big step forward!

As a result, we became an active participant in the Pécs Tourism Roundtable, where we are advocates of barrier-free tourism.

The Barrier-free Pécs Database has become part of the official website of the city of Pécs (https://pecs.hu/en/)

……. somehow we don’t get any further. We cannot hope for permanent financial support, and our accessibility signals are lost.
? What do you think we should do to find listening ears in local government and businesses?

But I don’t want to end with negative news. 🙂

Partnership is always one of the most important things for us, so it was a great pleasure that the Association for an Accessible Józsefváros Without Obstacles (Budapest) contacted us and we discussed how they could create a similar accessible database. Active, skillful organization, we hope it will come true!

We have launched an international People First network where we can talk about our common things and share our good ideas. Many People First organizations from all over the world have joined us! One of the good ideas is the city’s accessible database, which we will discuss at an international conference. Will you be with us?

Keep an eye on our Facebook page  (https://www.facebook.com/PeopleFirstHun) for updates, read our Website (https://peoplefirst.hu/en/ ) to get to know us better.

And if you can, see if you have some money in your account to help the accessibility. 🙂

Thank you for reading, thank you for being with us!
The People First team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of last year, we received great help from you!
As part of our Duplatét campaign, we asked you to support our unique urban barrier-free database in Hungary. https://peoplefirst.hu/akadalymentes-pecs/ 

Thanks to the application of the Emberség Erejével Alapítvány/Power of Humanity Foundation, we were able to double the HUF 250,000 we received from you as a donation! We will be forever grateful to all our Hungarian and foreign supporters. 

We want you to know WHAT WE SPENT YOUR GENEROUS DONATION ON LAST YEAR: 

First, take a look at how many excavated locations we’ve been able to revisit and update.
This is an extremely important part of the Barrier-free Pécs Database, as an accessible database is useless if its information is not up-to-date! 

WE ASK YOU TO TAKE A LOOK AT THE LOCATIONS AND WRITE WHAT YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED IN THE DATABASE AS AN OPINION! We also welcome opinions in English and German.
You help a lot with this for other people with disabilities, people with strollers, the elderly, and everyone for whom accessibility is good.

The following locations have been updated and expanded with new information and photos: 

Laterum Hotel: https://peoplefirst.hu/directory/akadalymentes-pecs/laterum/   

Interspar: https://peoplefirst.hu/…/akadaly…/interspar-hipermarket/   

Széchenyi Square public toilet: https://peoplefirst.hu/…/akadalymentes-pecs/szechenyi-ter/   

Nana Bistro&Bar: https://peoplefirst.hu/directory/akadalymentes-pecs/nana/   

Pécs Plaza: https://peoplefirst.hu/directory/akadalymentes-pecs/plaza/   

Clinic downtown: https://peoplefirst.hu/…/akadalymente…/rendelointezet-2/   

Vásárcsarnok/Market Hall: https://peoplefirst.hu/…/akadalymentes-pecs/vasarcsarnok/   

Selyemgyár Kulturális Negyed: https://peoplefirst.hu/…/selyemgyar-kulturalis-negyed/   

Városháza/Town hall: https://peoplefirst.hu/dire…/akadalymentes-pecs/varoshaza/   

Magtár: https://peoplefirst.hu/directory/akadalymentes-pecs/magtar/ 

WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING YOUR OPINIONS ABOUT EACH SITE IN THE DATABASE! 

Another important piece of information is the accessibility of websites, especially since in Hungary this is mandatory by law.
An accessible website is especially important for visually impaired people, who without it will not be able to get any information about a location. 

We did not check the websites when the Barrier-free Pécs Database was launched, so now we have LOOKED AT EVERY SINGLE WEBSITE GOING BACK TO 2018 and included it in the descriptions!
We may still have one or two backlogs, but we will make up for it. 

It was a huge task, as was the CAPTIONING OF ALL IMAGES AND ILLUSTRATIONS on the website, which is also a great help for our blind and visually impaired site visitors. We captioned the images in three ways. 

We are happy to hear from stakeholders whether we are doing it properly. Thank you in advance, you will greatly help our work! 

If you consider it important and would like to support the database, you can do so by clicking on the Adományozok/Donate button on our website with any amount of money. You can even support our work continuously. 

(The title is a wordplay. “Társadalomban” means “In society”. But written separately, “Társ a dalomban” means “Companion in my song”. The text is a quote from S.T. We Hungarians generally like to play with words. And we have a lot of opportunities for this, because we have a very wide vocabulary in the Hungarian language. 😊 ) 

What we planned, we implemented, and even more. We’re doing a lot of things now that we’ve been wanting for a long time. The only problem is that we have 5 new ideas from every good project. 😊  

What is getting better to feel, is that we are professionalizing. This makes things smoother for ourselves and allows us to present an unified image outwards. That’s important to us. 

Outwardly, we are invited to participate in more and more projects as experts, as Hungarian partner and consultants. We are getting more and more recognition, which encourages us to continue to do good work. 
In 2022, the grassroots initiative has become a priority for us, not only in our own circles, but also in our narrower and wider environment. It is important not only to suffer what is happening, but also to actively shape it. It is important to be visible, make visible and perceptible the problems that affect us. Therefore, more and more of our members are starting to have a say in community topics, and there are more and more opportunities and partners for this in Pécs.  

Our processes have become clearer inwardly, which, we admit, was not easy. To work at the same time as a group of friends, to pay attention to the souls of more than 30 sensitive people, to help connections, to smooth over difficulties, is a challenging task. Many times this is more difficult than achieving “Great Distant Goals”. It is an ongoing goal for People First membership to do for itself. Let us get involved in the issues that concern us as much as possible, not just let them happen. Let us be visible, let us be active, not expectant, but initiators both inside and outside the association. 

Let’s look at some numbers, facts, data, so that if you’ve already wandered here to the annual summary, we’ll tire you a little bit. 

We have submitted 12 applications or are in the process of being organized in the finale. We applied for domestic and international awards, banks, foreign funds, domestic tenders, developed ourselves, noticed new opportunities and started in new directions. The projects were and will be exciting, interesting. And the unwon applications can also be very instructive. All our applications are aimed at supporting the independent living of people with disabilities. So that our peers can try in and strengthen themselves as many areas as possible, and as we said above, do for themselves.   

We work on domestic and international projects. And we continue to feel very honored to be asked to be a partner in a project. What is new is that we have stepped out of our comfort zone and we ourselves undertake international project coordination. The implementation of which has begun. We will briefly report on our projects in a separate menu item on our website, it is worth reading through.
Our basic project, the first and most important activity of the People First Association remained the maintenance and development of the Barrier-free Pécs database. We don’t expect to change that. It is with this project that we help our fellow people with disabilities the most. This is what gives us the most pleasure. And with this we do a lot for Pécs and for barrier-free tourism in Hungary. This is the project that has such a wide target group that it actually includes everyone!
Our BeFogadó/InnClusive community space is very important to us. This is where we are trying to bring the local community together, organizing joint, inclusive programs for disabled and able bodied participants. The goal is to get to know each other, to enjoy these mostly free programs together. We put all our hearts into these programs.   

We include a lot of things in our results, not only successful applications and realized commitments. But also countless human gestures, freely laughs, friendly relations, nods of agreement.
For example, we have made a huge commitment to subtitle all the images we have accumulated so far on our website in three ways so that they can be enjoyed by our blind companions. 
It’s a great achievement for us if you read, you follow us on the website, Facebook, or Instagram, and you suddenly showed up on one of our programs that you heard, you read, you’re here.
It is a huge achievement for us if the collaborations go smoothly. If we ask for help we will get it. If we find that urban companies, corporations and organizations are not closing themselves off, but are even becoming more helpful in their approach to the topic of disability and accessibility. Over the years, we have seen a very big change in this in real helpfulness-attitude. Well, that’s the result for us!
Result is that we reach more and more young people. As guest lecturers at the various faculties of the university, with internships spent with us, participation in theses, with sensitization. One of our most important target groups is young people. If we change their attitude, we will change the world!
No, not everything is going smoothly for us either, we have conflicts and we have problems that are not yet closed. But we are trying, we are looking for solutions, even with the involvement of external experts. We don’t think we’re omnipotent, we like to get help, and we can apologize, hoping to get that too. 

Our membership is changing, evolving. New members have stepped in this year as well, and one of our members said goodbye to us. We have introduced advocacy membership, making it easier for our fellow members who cannot be actively present because they are working or living far away. At the year-end general meeting, the presidency was not renewed in composition, but was renewed and expanded in its division of tasks. We participated in supervision training to make our commitments, communication and goals clear. Our members also participate in trainings, both in Hungary and abroad.   

We continue to think in partnership because we see this as the only way forward. Why would everyone do their own thing, jealously watching the other, if together we can achieve so much more? We have become important partners this year: several faculties of the University of Pécs, organizations working with us in Pepita in our new BeFogadó/InnClusive community space, a high-tech company for people with disabilities. Our partnership with local community-building NGOs has remained and has been strengthened. And it is developing hopefully with the town hall and city companies. 

We also have own businesses that are part of our core activities. In small numbers, but more and more. We are experts, advising, coordinating, or launching our Hidden City Tor-Tours. 

Our big commitment this year is to make our association a public benefit status. For now, there are some administrative hurdles to this, but we will definitely be in early 2023.   

Stay tuned, follow us. And the best thing we like is to be able to meet in person. A good opportunity for this is our BeFogadó/InnClusive community space with its many new programs for 2023. Or a great Hidden City downtown walk. You can also find us for a good conversation, we are always available for that too!  

Happy New Year 2023! 

For three years now our sticker project has been carried out steadily and more professionally.  Between 1. January 2021 and 30. November 2021. the current phase WAS SUPPORTED BY THE CITIZENS OF PÉCS THEMSELVES through the “Élő Adás/Live Broadcast” community fundraising project of the Pécs Community Foundation. This gave the project a special boost, atmosphere and heart.

In the third phase, we undertook to
– we continuously go through and review existing sites
– we map all accessible accommodation in Pécs
– we organise a national conference on accessibility and cooperation between organisations carrying out similar activities in the country

The Covid pandemic has made our activities more difficult even now, at the beginning of 2021 we were only able to carry out our work difficultly due to the closures during the third wave of the epidemic. However, this period has been devoted to professional training, recasting the methodology, preparing and upgrading existing locations.
Also at the beginning of the year we had a successful discussion with the municipality of Pécs, Deputy Mayor Lajos Nyögéri. The result was continuous cooperation, during which we were able to participate effectively in the tourism development and marketing of the city. Among other things, we became responsible for accessible tourism at the Tourist RoundTable, carried out an accessible review of the city’s official renewable website (https://pecs.hu/), appeared on the page in an extra menu item our Barrier-free Pécs database (https://pecs.hu/pecsi-vagyok/ ), published with the support of the city the print publication of the Barrier-free Pécs database, and a written Cooperation Agreement was established between our association and the city.

We tried to inform the public about our activities in all forms: we sent Newsletters to the supporters and participants of the Barrier-free Pécs database about the progress of our activities, we reported on the new locations in regular Facebook and Instagram posts and campaigns, we talked about the database at numerous workshops and conferences both in Hungary and abroad, we were Best practice in several international projects, we filmed eye-catching flashmob videos that can still be seen on our own Youtube channel, we have been in the press several times, we have made business cards for team members.

It was a huge step forward that thanks to our IT developers our website and database were professionally eded out in May. This makes searchability, appearance and interactive options much easier and smarter.

Cooperation with the Tourinform office Pécs was also an important step, as a result of which our fun Hidden City Tor-Tour, presenting the accessibility of Pécs, became a permanent thematic tourist offer (https://peoplefirst.hu/en/blog-post/rejtett-varos-tor-tour-a/)

On 10. November 2021, in the shadow of Covid, but we held our national conference very successfully. Here an exciting professional discussion emerged about the need for accessibility, its human fundamental rights, and the topic of accessibility of historic buildings which is particularly topical in Pécs. We will build cooperation in the future with the other 3 organizations in Hungary that operate a similar accessible list or database.

There are currently 74 locations per 12 categories or parts of the city (Downtown, Kertváros, Uránváros, outside Pécs) in the Barrier-free Pécs database. The exploration of the sites was carried out regularly by 10 members. Our IT development was carried out by Balázs Oláh and Zoltán Borsodi. We were able to present 10 accommodations/hotels as accessible in the database, however, we have three times that number of which we visited in Pécs. We had to ask about 20 of the existing sites to make the changes.

We have already seen a very positive attitude from both the site owners/managers and the people of the city, the press and the city administration. Go Pécs, let the county seat of Baranya be exemplaryly accessible!

Our team is tired by the end of the third year and we cannot appreciate them financially enough. So we will not continue the excavations in this form. However, this does not mean that we do not develop or expand the Barrier-free Pécs database! We are creating a stand-by team and looking for new accessible locations in and around Pécs, just as we are very much looking for more support opportunities!

If you would like to support our activities, you can also do so by using the ADOMÁNYOZOK (DONATE) button on the homepage of our website in the form of a bank transfer.

We regularly report on the project to our donators in a direct e-mail, and  to those interested in our Barrier-free Pécs database here on our web site.

In our first Newsletter we can report on:

• the team was formed in December 2020. We have prepared an accurate action and funding plan
• In January 2021 we held a consultation with Deputy Mayor Lajos Nyögéri. The main topic was cooperation on the Accessible Pécs database
• we evaluated the 2020 Live Broadcast (“Élő Adás”) with the Pécs Community Foundation  in January, and in March we continued with how this year can be even more exciting, and what can we former participants help with?
• experiencing the power of the community, we have become familiar with and participate in other community donation systems
• we have received several requests for partnerships, which will bring a new color and new aspects to the database.
• Thanks to our new member from the USA and our IT engineer Balázs Oláh, we are currently in the process of perfecting the database. This is very important for us, because professionalism is one of our basic expectations for ourselves.
• In February 2014 we consulted with the Department of Economic Development at the Town Hall, where we decided on the cooperation that would benefit the citizens of Pécs in various forms in the future in the field of accessible urban development, tourism and city marketing.
• we made short films with the team members showing “Why do I care about the sticker team?” It will be visible on Facebook soon.
• we have revisited many locations, agreed, discussed and so far seen many positive changes in accessibility in the city. All this is displayed continuously in the database.
• the supported printer/scanner is in constant work, thank you very much to BolkoDesign! We also hope to get the cameras on offer as soon as possible and take high-quality pictures of the locations. This is important because it lets everyone decide for himself, how can a location be accepted for them from an accessible point of view

That’s where we are now. Due to the 3rd wave of Covid, the country will be closed for two weeks, so now we are doing administrative/organizing work, but we will start again at the end of March.

We are planning our conference in Pécs for the summer with the national participants and decision-makers involved in the topic.

This year, in addition to updating the existing locations, we will also explore the accessibility of all hotels and accommodations in Pécs.

All this is done by team members for a minimum fee, but with maximum heart! We love this project and we will never stop 🙂

Follow us and our sticker project on Facebook in English too: https://www.facebook.com/PeopleFirstHun
and on our website: http://peoplefirst.hu/en/
You can also find our accessible Pécs database on our website: http://peoplefirst.hu/en/akadalymentes-pecs/

We wish you a good spring, perseverance, good health!

Veronika Pataki, President

and the People First “sticker” team

The project entitled “Pécs without barrier” from 01.09. 2019 to 31.08. 2020 was a continuation of our “sticker ” project, which started in 2018 and explores the accessible locations of Pécs.

Although the Covid 19 outbreak had a strong impact on the project, it did not prevent it from being carried out. We were able to fully accomplish the basic objective of continuing to map important accessbile places from a residential and tourist point of view, marking the truly accessible sites with our own stickers, and the project were carried out by our disabled members who had already gained experience in this activity. The explored locations were organized into the own databases in Hungarian and English by category, published free of charge on our website in a menu (Barrier-free Pécs (EN) )   and promoted through the media throughout the country.

We have complemented our previous activities by exploring accessibility for the hearing impaired and visually impaired, and by presenting access to certain locations (bus, zebras, sidewalks, car parks).

Since social inclusion is still the fundamental goal, we have emphasized strongly this time that accessibility is important not only for people with disabilities, but also for people with strollers, the elderly, temporary injuries or for persons travelling with luggage!

We carried out very intensive and effective online marketing and press work, put up posters on frequented locations in Pécs, made video flashmob, built partnerships and conducted lobbying activities.

New accessible locations explored during the project: 6 restaurants/cafes, 7 shops, 5 sports and cultural institutions, 4 tourist attractions, 5 public institutions, 3 tourist trails. A total of 30 new locations.

Results: we have found that there is a huge demand for an accessible database, and the maintainers of the sites themselves are happy to participate. The press showed a great deal of interest in our work, as did other local and national NGOs, which brought the association a great deal of notion. A very important achievement is the development of a responsible, professional team, where members work very consciously with serious communication skills, learning the importance of team work, community activity and work. We are very pleased that we have also managed to establish a positive relationship with the municipality of Pécs and with the tourist offices, which we expect a lot from this in the future.

It is very important to us that an accessible database is only worth something if as many people as possible know it, and if we keep the data fresh all the time, so we will definitely continue the “sticker” project.

It feels more difficult to begin this report, due to coronavirus, which has messed with everything since March and caused problematic months for many of us. Still, it’s uplifting how even so the organization achieved a great deal of important tasks and took part in great experiences. Throughout this year an active group has been well forged. Our task for next year is to get more people taking part actively, finding their responsibilities which they could enjoy in the organization. Even with smaller steps for the group, but with giant leaps for mankind. 🙂

Let’s see what we have accomplished through the year of Corona?

In January all things were still bright, there may have even been a little snow, who knows yet? Anyway, we felt strongly how we love to go hiking. Here in Pécs we have loads of trails and we think it’s an excellent way to include more and more people. This is why our database Barrier-free Pécs now includes the possibility to discover barrer-free hiking trails. Take a look at all we’ve found so far: http://peoplefirst.hu/en/akadalymentes-pecs/ 

We are always pleased when we can sensitize younger people, because if they get to know and accept the difference, we have a winning case in the future. Our entry into the Esély-Híd university course is due to our member Molnár Gyöngyi and it was a pleasure for us. We have also worked with the community organizers of the Department of Cultural Studies, giving a great experience for many of us. Some students from Leőwey Klára High School worked for us as part of their mandatory 50 hour community service. Thanks to them, the Barrier-Free Pécs posters can be seen all over the city, they were the ones who put them out there. We didn’t let go of our older high school members either, we still get a lot of help from them, so we nominated them for the Volunteer of the Year award. Although they did not receive an award, Szekeres Heni won the special prize of the Volunteer of the Year “Helping volunteers” (for helpers working in the field of opportunity creation and / or volunteers with disabilities) this year!

It is still very important for us that the local civil-organizations work together, uniting their strengths and knowledge. We had several opportunities for this this year, such as attending the “Neighborhood Academy” meetings of the Pécs Community Foundation, discussions at “Chance team” tea parties organized by the CSEÖH, and discussing the local civil concept at the House of Civil Communities in July with Kunszt Márta, a civil society adviser. The two-year review of the Local Equal Opportunities Program (HEP) became topical this year. We received a request from City Hall for our association to coordinate the 16 excellent organizations that have been involved in the updating of this, with really great ideas. 

The revision of the HEP can be read here (in Hungarian): https://gov.pecs.hu/staticPage/index/strat_dokumentumok.php 

In January we also took part in an excellent tour guide training with the specialists of Tourinform, where we prepared for our barrier-free downtown tour “Hidden City”, so that we could lead those interested in a professional way (http://peoplefirst.hu/en/projects/rejtett-varos-tor-tour-a/ ). Back then, we thought we could start this tour as a permanent tourist offer this year, but then Covid came and tourism disappeared from the scene. Next year! 🙂

On the other hand, we won the ECK project with our partner organizations, the aim of which was the organization of the IV.  Barrier-free Tourism Day, and we attended its opening event in January. In June, a 5-day residential workshop was held in Orfű, the main aim was to be able to actively involve as many affected people as possible in the organization. In this way, we can adapt the festival as much as possible to the needs of people with disabilities. Did we succeed? You decide, who participated! You can also read about the Barrier-Free Tourism Day on a separate website, here:https://akadalymentesnap.hu/?lang=en 

And the event, as every year, took place in early September. We were excited throughout the year to see if it could be, yes, no, yet not, maybe, as Covid had a strong impact on that as well. This time we took on an active role in the organizing committee, including our secretary Berkes Gergő, Almádi Evelin, Biobia, Szabó Zsuzsa, Pataki Veronika, but Kerekes Hilda,Vida Ágota and others also helped a lot. It can be said that despite the threat of this year’s epidemic, they made this very successful event really innovative and exciting!

We’ll let you in on a secret, our german guests like the Barrier-free Tourism Day so much, that they’d like to organize a similar event next year – if we help them.

Moreover, due to our Peer-AcT international barrier-free tourism project, we participated in the organization of an international conference connected to the festival in September. This included a Hidden City tour for our german guests, which they also liked so much, that they’d like to try organizing a similar event back in Germany.

New members also came to join us to our great joy, as we were able to expand with more creative people Annamária, Dani, Evelin, Hilda, Ricsi, Zsuzsa and two Zolis also. We are happy to have you with us!!

Marketing. Many people still don’t understand why we do it, but we believe that our goal of making what we do visible, traceable, understandable should make sense for as many people as possible. Surely we make statements, give lectures, talk, persuade, campaign, build relationships … to reach a goal. You could hear us, you could read about us here and there and we will continue to share in the future. And also do all this in English, since we have many dear foreign partners, followers. We want you to always be with us in what we do, and even if only remotely, but you can participate in it.

In April, Vida Ágota and Molnár Gyöngyi took part in a 5-day English-language training in Germany, where they performed so well that we were able to hold peer-counselor training on accessibility for 10 other members in July and August. In the future, if there will be tourism again, they will be able to work as peer-counselors in this field in a number of ways. The association will also help them get started.

The first crash, the first wave of Covid, struck in March. 🙁

Still, with our german partner we’ve developed a project that was submitted to the German tender Aktion Mensch. If we win, next year we will create a community space where we support independent living in a variety of ways. Wish us luck!

Our “sticker-team” was able to work within the framework of the FOF2019 project this year and to develop our Barrier-Free Pécs database more and more professionally. We worked at the beginning of the year, then in the summer and even in the fall at full steam. Oláh Balázs’s web work can still only be praised, just as the current team works professionally! It is also worth knowing who they are, who discover the barrier-free locations of Pécs, coordinate, discuss up to ten times, go back many times, take photos, describe, tirelessly and enthusiastically. The team: Makay Péter, Oláh Balázs, Balogh Roland, Szekeres Henriett, Almádi Evelin, Hegedűs Szandra, Koltai Krisztina, Pataki Veronika. 

The support from FOF2019 expired in August, we did not win the FOF2020. Here came the big question: how to proceed? The Barrier-free Pécs database doesn’t worth much without updates and expansions. We came up with another solution, which was when The Community Foundation of Pécs provided us with the biggest experience and success of this year through its community fundraising evening “Live Broadcasting”. At the online event in December, the people of Pécs raised more than 1 million Forints to support the continuation of the database and the organization of a conference to discuss good practices! It was an indescribable experience to experience this event, teamwork, helpfulness, community power!

We have written many applications, it is expected that not all of them have won. However, one of the non-winners was of paramount importance to us. It was the opportunity for us to participate in the Access City Award international application, for which the City Hall asked us. Berkes Gergő and Pataki Veronika wrote several chapters of this tender, which were of outstanding importance for the accessibility of Pécs. Yes we are sorry that it did not win, but next time!

The Covid epidemic dealt the greatest blow to our peers in the institutions, who are forced to live in complete isolation during the first and then the second Covid-wave. Since it is neither humanly nor socially legal and fair, we have raised our voice against this and turned to the Ombudsman in July. Our request is only to give guidance to the leaders and maintainers of the institutions on how to behave and what solutions to apply in similar crisis situations. We know that the Ombudsman’s mills are grinding slowly, but it also surprises us that our petition in July was not answered by December. We were therefore forced to turn to both the head of the institution and the maintainer, offering our free help and ideas – but we received a nasty, incomprehensible rejection. However, it is here that the principles of “nothing about us without us” and “people with disabilities are the best knowers and representatives of their own affairs”, on which we continue to help our fellow institutions.

Of course, this year as well we had fun when we could, we met up, we had coffee, we went to concerts, we went on trips, we did video flashmobing with great mood and we wrote reviews, we did legal, tax, financial affairs with less mood… ..life continued the same when it could. Unfortunately, we were not able to meet up in person most of the time because of the virus, which we did not like. We tried to keep in touch at Zoom, but there is a lack of personal meetups, having coffees, hikes outside… 

We will make it up to ten times next year 🙂

Perseverance for all and let us keep together in our hearts.

Pécs Community Foundation

Pécs’s Future Foundation 2018 

Community Creativity Projects

The Project’s name: “Pécs is livable as a barrier-free city”

Its duration: 22.11.2018 – 31.08.2019

About the project:

Members of People First Association Pécs have formed teams of two and started  visiting restaurants, cafes, hotels, shops in Pécs to map barrier-free places. If it was barrier-free, with the consent of the owner, preferably with him together  put a sticker – which we designed – on the doors just like Visa or MasterCard. In case the place has a truly barrier-free toilet a WC sign appears in the lower right corner of the sticker as well. If the toilet isn’t barrier-free, the WC sign don’t appear on the sticker.

If the establishment is not fully accessible but improving its accessibility is possible and the owners of the establishment are open to it, we supported them with advice regarding the sourcing and installation of ramps, handrails etc., as well as help with official procedures or redesign.

In return the Association does not expect any financial compensation from the restaurants/cafés 

All of this greatly contributes Pécs, as an assessment of barrier-free livable city, it’s also a tourist attractant factor.

Let’s make Pécs barrier free! A barrier free society is not only advantageous to the disabled; young mothers with prams, the elderly, and those with temporary injuries also benefit.

The attitude of the owners was positive, they were happy to help. Where they were not cooperative we didn’t discriminate, only we removed it from the database. Persuading is not our job. But the attitude of the owner, manager and staff is very important, it was also a “barrier-free condition” for us. 

We have posted all times the identified sites with photos on our and additional Facebook sites. We had a lot of likes, comments and shares. https://www.facebook.com/PeopleFirstHun/

We have uploaded the identified sites on the wheelmap.org too, by this introduced the locations of Pécs in an european-level database. We have done this two ways: evaluated the already registered ones, and uploaded the missing ones with self-made photos. https://wheelmap.org/search

We have created a menu item on our website with a category database. We want to do this database more professional in the future. Our website is bilingual, all data and reports are in English and Hungarian – except the blog. http://peoplefirst.hu/akadalymentes-pecs/

Participants, number of the involved people, effects:

The “sticker project” was implemented by a 6 person-team of People First Association. 3 are wheelchair users 1 movements inhibited, 2 able bodied assistance. Many of our members also helped with ideas, with place recommendation, and we got a lot of Facebook comments from the city population.

Our membership is enchanted (8 person) who indicated that specifically in the projects they want to participate. 

All included companies became partner (restaurants, hotels, national organisations), we have built everywhere a linked to one person relationship. These are very useful contacts for us (e.g. Hungarian Post Company, OTP the most important Hungarian bank)

Partners, potential supporters:

Among our members and close cooperating partners was a lively debate many times about the accessibility, suitability of a place, shall we put the sticker on or not, what is the really important aspect….

We have decided that some of the answers from the finding locations are not satisfactory for us. We continue to consult with them and in the last resort we turn to the Equal Treatment Authority. 

We have a concrete relationship with many useful organizations (Biokom, Decathlon, IT Services, Hungarian Post Company, McDonalds, OTP Bank, hotels, restaurants, Bishop of Pécs, media). There was a case for applying into the project an organization itself (Pécs Plaza). 

The attitude was very positive, we experienced only 2-3 times impassivity. The willingness to change was strong, even when the accessibility was a difficult task (tourist attractions like the Cathedral or the Mosque, or historic building like Almalomb restaurant in Hosszúhetény)

The project expansion was made possible by the support of C.S. Mott american foundation Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland, “Pécs City for wheelchair users – Promoting Inclusion through both Improved Wheelchair Accessibility and Community building activities” project. 

Data

finding locations in Pécs from barrier-free perspective (restaurants/cafes/hotels/shops/public institutions/churches/public toilets): 53

sticker received: 22

not accessible: 14

accessible but corporate marketing reasons sticker placing is not possible (e.g Árkád Pécs, McDonalds, OTP Bank, Hungarian Post): 5

waiting for feedback: 12

As mentioned, in some places we continue to agree, wrote an official letter with the involvement of rehabilitation engineer and lawyer. In case of negative answer we will turn of the Equal Treatment Authority. 

Media appearances:

• 2019.04.24. print média: Dunántúli Napló “Színes matricával jelzik, ha egy hely akadálymentes” 2. o

<iframe src=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FPeopleFirstHun%2Fposts%2F2284803801610271&width=500″ width=”500″ height=”634″ style=”border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” allow=”encrypted-media”></iframe>

• “Nincs akadály” jegyzet 2.o
• BAMA online: https://www.bama.hu/kozelet/helyi-kozelet/szines-matricaval-jelzik-ha-egy-hely-akadalymentes-1803352/?fbclid=IwAR0U0hBjJVezhqVrYJZtlbFJnNHz5f-FM0QY10woB7dxH3GhufcIpXfM9N8
• 2019. május print média:  I Love Pécs Magazin “Pécs akadálymentesen is élhető város!” cikk 33.o

<iframe src=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FPeopleFirstHun%2Fposts%2F2300960023327982&width=500″ width=”500″ height=”670″ style=”border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” allow=”encrypted-media”></iframe>

• Facebook kampány: 2019.04.08. “Tegyél te is az akadálymentes Pécsért”  – bematricázzuk Pécset! 7556 elért ember, 557 aktivitás, 62 like, 13 hozzászólás, 50 megosztás

<iframe src=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FPeopleFirstHun%2Fposts%2F2258365727587412&width=500″ width=”500″ height=”750″ style=”border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” allow=”encrypted-media”></iframe>

• 2019. április print média: I Love Pécs Magazin: “Pécsi Közösségi Alapítvány Fontos lépések az élhetőbb, akadálymentesebb Pécsért!”12.o

<iframe src=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FPeopleFirstHun%2Fposts%2F2252085481548770&width=500″ width=”500″ height=”689″ style=”border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” allow=”encrypted-media”></iframe>

• A feltárt, akadálymentes helyek megjelenítése a nemzetközi wheelmap.org oldalon: https://wheelmap.org/ 
• Database in our website (in Hungarian and English): http://peoplefirst.hu/ 
• Facebook site (in Hungarian and English): https://www.facebook.com/PeopleFirstHun/ 
• Instagram site: peoplefirstpecs 

Continuation of the project:

We started the project in at the end of the year 2018 and completed it in August of 2019 in the framework of this project.

BUT, we can’t stop the project, because on the one hand, a constant updating requires, on the other hand, the disabled people requires the continuation. This is a entirely niche activity in Pécs, a current database is required. 

We still have many places to discover and new directions will be implemented by the posts, comments of the local residents and interested: churches, tourist attractions, public institutions, cultural institutions, basic public institutions, hiking trails.

We also want to explore how places can be approached: bus lines, accessibility of the buses, accessibility of the bus stops, where to get off the bus, condition of walkways, route planning. 

The already identified sites must also be checked – e.g. the public toilet on the Kossuth square was barrier-free and we got a comment, that it is full of cleaning tools by now. 

We found the opportunity to continue, from September 2019 we keep doing it with a winner application of NFSZK FOF2019 project, now according to the above extensions!  

Further plan to make the project part of city marketing – but to do this, need to create a strong city marketing in Pécs. This could help the prospective Disability Council Pécs for which we are currently working on.

Thank you for the  Pécsi Közösségi Alapítvány/Pécs Community Foundation  to give a push to the

• project idea and implement a niche activity in Pécs
• strengthen our membership

• partners expansion

• increase our awareness

•  courage  of new applications

Veronika Pataki Veronika, president

People First Association – Pécs

19.09. 2019.

Our main goal was with the ECK project was to make disabled people an active part of local society. We could reach that with all project elements.

The Barrier-free Tourism Day is increasingly well-known at national level and since 2019 in an international level too. New elements have been added, e.g. presentation of disability sports, involving a new location (sports camp), which have all made significant progress. In the organizing team disabled people are more and more active. The number of volunteers is constantly growing and expanded with new arrivals like students and high school students who are particularly keen to volunteer with us. Volunteers are important element of social sensitizing. 

Exploring barrier-free hiking  trails project element proved to be an excellent community-building activity within the association and the involvement of the local population was also successful in this project element. An unexpected effect was the strong media interest.

We developed a methodology to the Hidden city barrier-free guidance project element, and tried it on 6th of September with serious interest. It was also a great opportunity to build contacts with local populations and actors in tourism. The future continuation of the project element, the inclusion in the permanent tourist offers in Pécs proved to be a greater task than we thought, but the opportunity has arrived at the end of the project. We have also prepared to continue it in our international Peer-AcT Erasmus+ project.

A methodology has been developed also in Barrier-free advice project element. Here we are looking for additional partners, mainly lodgings in Pécs and the area around Pécs.

It was an important goal and impact in the whole project to make Pécs better and more livable.

ECK was the most complex project so far, which required a lot of work but thus brought satisfaction, recognition, external and internal success and brought new tasks. The greatest achievement is the increase in the activity and responsibility of the members.

It is difficult to highlight one as the best moment of the project, but since the best way to achieve the accessibility in our minds  with enjoyable, cheerfully performed sensitisation, the Hidden city barrier-free guidance can be highlighted. We really enjoyed it, and the participants too. It’s a pleasure to show our city, it’s a pleasure to work with good partners. This is part of accessible tourism, which will be of great emphasis in the life of our organization in the future. We have already had serious results, we can boast of many best practices in Hungary and abroad. This is the project element that demonstrated the best the internal professionalism, which draws attention to the fact that people with disabilities are equally people. In this case, they are equally qualified in terms of diploma, language skills, creativity, innovativeness and even humor.

Thank you ECK!