A year has past, a very active and effective one. Let’s see what had People First HU done in 2018?
We’ve been on a study-tour in Germany and they came here, to Hungary. The association has changed, new Base Rules, new presidency, new plans, the number of our members is continuously increasing. We’ve set our bilingual website, students are doing community service with us, we’re sensitizing here and there. We’re applying and winning, we’re partners in international projects, we took part in develop the city’s Equal Opportunities Program. We’re forming relationships in Hungary and abroad, we’re taking part in campaigns even abroad. And we’re getting together everytime we can to just enjoy each other! We’ll continue this in 2019! 
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We held a great and cosy open year-end general assembly yesterday in Speckó – thanks for our member Pintér Csaba. We talked about how much did we do this year and a future task.
Yes, a lot of things we did this year: the association transformed, we take part in national and international projects/campaigns, won an application, made contract with two high schools about the students community service, we have logo and website, participated in writing of the local Equal Opportunities Program 2018-2023, we had a serious role of the organising the II. Barrier-free Tourism Day, we have new Hungarian and international partnerships, our members are open, active and more and more professional!
Special thanks to our outside enthusiasts for participating in the general assembly and welcome our new members!
The People First Association participate in an international project, its first kick-off meeting was held between 30.11.-03.12.2018 in Barcelona and Corbera. The “Peer-Act” Erasmus+ KA2 project is a program with the participation of five countries (Germany, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Croatia), the main objective of the project is the training of Peer Counselor trainers from the community of disabled people or people with special needs, with providing inclusion and equal opportunities. You can read more about this project in our website here: http://peoplefirst.hu/en/projects/peer-act-erasmus-ka2-nemzetkozi-project/
We are very happy to announce that our Association has won with the project called “Pécs is livable as a barrier-free city” at the Pécsi Community Foundation, “Pécs’s future foundation 2018 Community Creativity projects”.
We are even happier to tell that out of the 17 projects that were handed in we’re one of the 3 that they decided to support.
About the project in a nutshell:
Two of the members of People First Association – Pécs (a handicapped and an able bodied person) are visiting all of the restaurants and cafes in the downtown area of Pécs to map the barrier-free places. They will talk to the owners to let put a sticker – which we designed – on the doors just like Visa or MasterCard. The sticker is 10×10 size, not ostentatious, not too colorful, not distracting but shows that the place is barrier-free so handicapped people can easily enjoy what the place has to offer just like other people.
In case the place has a truly (not only in the image of society “no stairs, so it must be barrier-free”) barrier-free toilet – which is because of basic needs is just as important as it is with our able bodied fellow-creature – a WC sign appears in the lower right corner of the sticker as well. If the toilet isn’t barrier-free, the WC sign appears crossed on the sticker. This is not discriminatory, this is information for our disabled people and to prevent incidental disappointment. But it’s expected to cause an incinting effect on the owner of the place to make the toilet barrier-free in the future.
In return the Association does not expect any financial compensation from the restaurants/cafés, moreover we will display it in a map-mode on our website, as well as through the wheelmap.org website all over the world (!), and we would like to achieve it similarly on the urban media sites.
Later we will extend this project to food and clothing stores.
All of this greatly contributes Pécs, as an assessment of barrier-free livable city, it’s also a tourist attractant factor, because our disabled people are travelling the same amount and with the same enthusiasm like everyone else. Especially if a city specifically encourages them to do so and if they type Pécs on the international wheelmap.org they will be welcomed by many barrier-free restaurants/cafés that we have evaluated.
The People First Association Pécs made a contract with the Leőwey Klára Highschool of Pécs, so from the 9/b English class some kind and enthusiastic students work with us on their compulsory community service. As we see, the handiest and the best students applied as a volunteer to us, so we can give them some variegate jobs: they participate in a boccia team’s trainings and competitions, they are animator at the Speckó special sensitizing escape-game-room, translate in English, help and escort some disabled people, participate at some sensitizing trainings, gathering… and everything else 🙂 Thank you Alex, Barni, Barnabás, GG and Panna!
https://www.facebook.com/172288729567705/videos/885597291570175/UzpfSTExMjc3NzQ1NTQ3OTU5NDoxOTgzOTA2MjQ1MDMzMzYz/
Our association has been invited to elaborate the 2018-2023 tract of the Pécs’s Equal Opportunities Program. We can feel the opportunity’s weight, because with our member’s personal experiences, ideas, observations we can participate in making Pécs barrier-free. We’ve got enough ideas, we hope to be included in the city’s next five-year plan and we can implement them. Thank you for the opportunity!
Places we sent: I Love Pécs Café and Janus Office Building. Thank you!
