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>
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
- courage of new applications
Veronika Pataki Veronika, president
People First Association – Pécs
19.09. 2019.
