There is a great online newspaper, Mecseki Müzli, which summarises the most important news of our region every week. And its podcasts cover interesting local or even more far-reaching topics. Veronika Pataki, the president of the association, and Hilda Kerekes, a member of the board, were happy to attend such a good-mood podcast discussion.

The main topic was our Barrier-free Pécs Database as our aim is to be identified with our association. But we also discussed the accessibility of the Mecseki Müzli. 🙂

Listen to us, we want to know how you liked it!
And follow, use, share the Barrier-free Pécs Database, because it’s GOOD FOR EVERYONE!

Click here for the podcast:
https://www.mecsekimuzli.com/people-first-egyesulet-pataki-veronika-kerekes-hilda-akadalymentes-pecs/

Barrier-free tourism will be a key issue in the near future, that much is already certain. More and more elderly people are travelling, more and more people with disabilities are travelling – hopefully as independently as possible.

There has been an airport in Pécs for a long time, but until now it has not been possible to fly from our city for holidays or business, or only for a short time. Now, however, the opportunity has been opened up and there is a huge interest in both holidays and flights to Munich, which also offers business and family visit opportunities.

Read about the accessibility of Pécs-Pogány Airport and our cooperation in its development in our Barrier-free Pécs Database!
Pécs-Pogány Airport – People First

Az Universal Air repülője látható a kifutópályán. Hosszú, vékony, kecses repülőgép, két hatalmas motorturbinával az oldalán.

We are involved in a project with a special theme and a very topical subject, in an unusually large international partnership.
It is increasingly important that people with disabilities are able to access financial services and banking products without barriers, and that they have a thorough knowledge of this sector, of security and of the difficulties that may arise.

This is the subject of our latest international project, CODE – theCcessibility Of financial services for persons withDisabilitiEs.
This is another big step towards social inclusion.

We will be working with Italian, Spanish, Belgian, Greek, French partners, experts and of course people with disabilities themselves.
Read more about this exciting new project on our website under the Projects menu here: https://peoplefirst.hu/en/blog-post/code-erasmus-international-project/?fbclid=IwAR2VbW1r1sqQkeO-sCYL5equrCJjQrVAvU6DCzSFEzrd07KHLE8rEiLWDbA_aem_AZyrIauUVDWkCMRAfaPUmSg6iCN92Lfl0WJah6NtPHCjhKa9Lm6tK3LZ9QXSr2A8yA4qj0hHwpdowJWaEtRZn__W

It is a great pleasure when NGOs in Pécs ask the city government for something and it is implemented within a short time. This happened last year, when several civil society organisations at the Civil Forum asked for city funding to be made available through tenders. The reason for this is that many NGOs work for the people of Pécs, for those in need, often carrying out activities that the state or the municipality cannot or cannot adequately provide. A number of exemplary initiatives have been/are being implemented in Pécs by NGOs.

Last year’s Pécs City Civic Framework will continue this year, with a little more money available for applicants. It is a great achievement that – also at the request of Pécs civic activists – the call for applications was launched at the beginning of the year. The application method has also been improved, with the House of Civic Communities playing a major role as coordinator.

Listen to the PécsTV news report about this, in which, to our great delight, People First is featured prominently. Thank you PécsTV!

“I never used to care about what was going on behind my back, but while sitting in a wheelchair it has become the most important thing”
“Somehow it never occurred to me that you not only have to go up a ramp, but also down. And it’s scary in a wheelchair”
“I will look at the world in a completely different way after trying the white cane”
A large international team is taking home these experiences by trying our Hidden City Tor-Tour once again. (https://peoplefirst.hu/blog-post/rejtett-varos-tor-tour-a/)

Once again, they will pass on to many people those useful experiences that are not enough to say, they must be lived!

The team, coming from several countries, participated in a conference entitled “Disabilities and abilities framed by context” in the framework of the EDUC project of the University of Pécs. At this conference Veronika Pataki, president of our association, presented our Accessible Pécs Database (https://peoplefirst.hu/akadalymentes-pecs/) to the international audience. The additional programme of the conference (MICE) was the Hidden City Tor-Tour in the evening, led by our vice-president Gergő Berkes in his usual uplifting mood.

On the next day of the conference, we launched a series of discussions with the faculty of the University of Pécs and three invited NGOs, including People First, in the framework of the EDUC programme. The topic of this discussion was the cooperation of several international universities in the development of their services, with a special focus on inclusion.
We look forward to continuing this!

Hasn’t your year gone too well? Then change now!

Come with us in 2024, join us and let’s work together for an even better year in 2024.

(The Hungarian inscription on the picture in English:
Happy New Year! May all your accessible dreams come true.)

Serious things can also be spent in a good mood, and even enjoyed. Perhaps we can admit to ourselves that we are doing it right. 🙂
On a sunny Saturday afternoon on December 16. 2023, we gathered in our BeFogadó/InnClusive community space to hold our annual General Meeting. We met earlier because we wanted to establish good cheer with a little Christmas, gift-giving, and food and drink. Managed.

The main body of our association, the General Assembly, then heard the financial and professional report of the Presidency. Lively interest, accompanied by comments and questions, they accepted them.
Then a constructive, useful discussion developed about the association’s plans for 2024. Great ideas have been received, and implementation teams have already been created. Encouraging activity for 2024! 🙂

This year, the Presidency also gave a small gift to those present at the General Assembly. This came straight from America thanks to our board member. The lovely little Christmas tree ornament will bring smiles to faces in many People First homes this year.

At the end, we boosted the year-end-get-together at the Quiz Night organized by our partner organizations. Some of us stayed at the BeFogadó/InnClusive with our team, which of course was called People the First. We weren’t very productive, but we had a lot of fun laughing at ourselves to tears.

The Pécs City Hall scheduled the convening of the 3. Civil Forum on Santa Claus’ Day, 06.12.2023.

The aim of the Civil Forums is to provide the city administration and civil organizations working for the city with up-to-date information from the local government, indicate their needs and have conversations.
The need for regular convening of Civil Forums is one of the results of the urban Civil Concept established in 2021. This was formulated jointly by the municipality and NGOs in order to cooperate more smoothly and closely from now on.

The topics of the current 3. Civil Forum were the Pécs City Civil Framework and the “Decide with Us!” participatory budget.

The Pécs City Civil Framework was established last year, also based on the needs of civil organizations. Its essence is that the city should allocate an amount from which it supports the programs of the city’s civil organizations through tenders.
This year was preceded by the provision of an extraordinary overhead subsidy to NGOs, also through tenders.
In the end, HUF 50 million was available for the Pécs City Civil Framework. 95 applications were received, of which 57 organizations received funding, typically all of them half of what they requested. The reason for this, according to the City Hall, is to allow as many organizations as possible to receive funding. However, the largest amount of support was HUF 400,000. The People First Association also implements the exploration of new locations in the Barrier-free Pécs Database from only HUF 300,000.
In their comments, NGOs asked for the tender to be announced earlier next year and for the decision and contract conclusion to go much smoother, which made the work of NGOs very difficult this year. They also asked the city to create an online platform for this purpose and not have to submit the application in paper form.

This year, Pécs joined the “Decide with Us!” participation budget, following several Hungarian cities. The aim of this exemplary initiative is to enable citzens themselves to decide over a certain amount what kind of urban development they want to implement from it.
Of course, the first year caused minor and especially major bumps, but the process has started and will continue, which makes us proud of our city.

Unfortunately, the implementation of the cooperation principles laid down in the above-mentioned 2021 Civil Concept is already progressing more difficultly. Since April 2023, a large civil umbrella organization has been coordinating the Civil Concept. However, none of the activities undertaken have been implemented in the past two years, which is demotivating for many NGOs.
These include:
– Creation of a Civil Portal to provide news to and about civilians.
– Establishment of professional working groups with the participation of NGOs on Equal Opportunities, Democracy Development and Climate/Green topics.
– Creation of a Civil Database for which all NGOs can register. It would be an excellent partner search opportunity for each other, and the municipality would also know who to turn to. Registered organizations can regularly receive information from the city about tender opportunities, and only registered applicants could apply for the Pécs City Civil Framework.
– Pécs Civil Day, one-day colorful program with the opportunity to introduce yourself.

We are still waiting for all this and we strongly hope that it will be implemented in 2024.

An important closing topic of the Civil Forum was ESG introduced by the EU, the social responsibility obligation of large companies. To learn about this, the town hall promises to organize training for civil organizations in Pécs. We are looking forward to it, it will be an exciting topic!