Our international CODE project is working with a number of European partners to make banking and financial services more accessible for people with disabilities.
A very important goal, in which we want to involve not only users but also the professionals of the financial sector.
We also appreciate your forwarding information about the CODE project. The second Newsletter provides a brief update on the progress of the project.

Click here to read the December Newsletter: Newsletter CODE December 2024

Read more about CODE here: CODE project
And we are also very happy to tell you more about our activities, contact us at info@peoplefirst.hu

In all our international projects, we consider our main task as a Hungarian partner is to implement the principle of “Nothing about us, without us”.
This is why we have created a Focusgroup in 2023 within the association, made up of active members who commit to contribute to this principle through their work, opinions, comments or even personal participation.
They are those who shape the progress of international projects by enforcing the above principle, thus having a huge impact on the quality of life of people with disabilities at European level.

On 3. December 2024, some members of our Focusgroup had a fantastic performance at the week-long meeting of our international Soul Mate project in Rome.
The project on mental support for employees with disabilities is currently running a training course on this topic for future trainers and partners.
On this day, the People First Association held the afternoon session, where we presented our Focusgroup.
We talked about its structure, its work in international projects.
We talked about what it’s like to be involved and to be a member of a Focusgroup in the Soul Mate project.
And we talked about what it’s like to be an employee in the primary labour market as a person with a disability.
All this was particularly relevant yesterday on World Day of People with Disabilities.

We heard some really good presentations and, especially personal experiences on the above topics in English from our Focusgroup members: Hilda, Ágota, Zoli, Gergő and Péter. Congratulations for your honest and important thoughts!

Just recently, we held an end-of-year brunch with the Focusgroup members, where the association’s leadership thanked the 17 active and committed members for their work this year. We consider their work to be crucial to international projects and they deserve recognition for this.

Learn more about our international projects in the Projects menu on our website.

The Universal Air airline’s winter in-flight magazine 2024-2025 features the People First Association’s Hidden City Tor-tour and the Barrier-free Pécs Database!

We are very proud and we think it is a great opportunity that hundreds of people flying all over the world can read about the fact that there are barrier-free tourism opportunities in Pécs.

In our association’s appearance in the magazine we highlighted not only the Hidden City Tor-Tour in Pécs, and the Barrier-free Pécs Database, which presents truly accessible sites in 12 categories, in Hungarian and English.
Indeed, the point of our advertisement is to showcase the Hidden City Tor-Tour as a best practice and a special opportunity for accessible tourism. As part of our “Walk in our shoes” project, supported by the Visegrad Fund, we have been promoting the Hidden City Tor-Tour to our Polish and Czech partners through training and study tours. Currently, the tour is being implemented in Poznan and Vrchlabi, and we have also raised awareness of the tour among the flying public.

You can read online the full winter in-flight magazine here:
Universal.Air.pdf

If you would like to get involved in the development of accessible tourism, or to start your own Hidden City Tor Tour, register on the English-language Platform created by our association and let’s work together: https://hiddencity.eu/

We are involved in a new international Erasmus+ project with a long-awaited, important goal: to develop self-determination in long-term care.

We have been planning this project with our international partners for years and we are now getting started. Our aim is to involve all the target groups concerned and provide them with a training course in which they can work closely together. The aim of this training programme is to empower people with disabilities and/or in need of care, as well as their carers and family members, to empower them to exercise self-determination in long-term care/care.

We kicked off the project with great excitement with our first online meeting on 4. November 2024. This will be followed by a face-to-face partner meeting in January 2025, where partners will arrive with ready-made plans.

Read on to find out what the project aims to do, how it will be implemented, who will be involved and what People First’s role will be.

Click here:
https://peoplefirst.hu/en/blog-post/faircare-erasmus-international-project/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2aUpdt6lUJLjkZ8xmAbNp0PcupCAte64bDeI9CrfBcwRbu2jgLhPyUduQ_aem_nNHiSNmGCQQnxB-bNs8Bgg

The international meeting of our Indeed project was this time in Pécs, Hungary. On 15-16 October, our Slovak, Italian and German partners visited us in our InnClusive community space in Balokány-grove.

We had an intense two days, approaching independent living from many different aspects. We wanted to present the Hungarian situation in particular, with questions, comments and own experiences from other countries.

What we are most proud of is that, at the start of the first day, several members of our association spoke about their own experiences of independent living.
Balázs Oláh talked about why he made this decision and what it was like to move from his family to a small supported housing community recently. He got a lot of motivation from living independently and made huge progress in many everyday activities.
Gyöngyi Molnár is slowly moving from her own apartment to a small supported housing community. For now she only spends weekends there, but she would like to live more and more with her flatmates. She has also discovered new skills thanks to the fact that in independent housing there is no parent to jump in to help, take her car to the service or fuel, she has to do everything herself. She realised she could do it and really enjoyed it.
Evelin Almádi talked about what it is like to live alone in your own apartment as a visually impaired person. She lives a full life as a non-sighted person, she works and even plays sports, she regularly runs around Lake Malomvölgyi with help and has cycled around Lake Balaton on a tandem bike.
We heard from Hilda Kerekes about how she is dealing with the fact that she used to be married and live in her own flat, and has now moved back in with her parents. What difficulties she faces in finding a job as a disabled person, what plans she has and what she has to face.
Péter Makay shared some very interesting thoughts from the other side. Péter changed from an Italian teacher to a personal assistant. He feels he gets as much as he gives, is energised by his work. He shared many interesting details with the international team about how personal assistants can work in Hungary today, who they can help and how. He received a lot of questions from representatives of other countries.

We heard a presentation on support services, where the university support service was of particular interest.
We summarised for our guests what self-advocacy organisations are operating in Hungary.
We talked about the Pécs community budget (“Decide with us!”), which is also a great opportunity for empowerment for people with disabilities.
We presented the Barrier-free Tourism Day festival, which we have been organising since 2016 with great national interest in Orfű.

Then we discussed the project tasks ahead.

We screened short films, played quizzes, and at the end we cooked “lecsó” together in a joint barbeque, so that our guests could find out what real Hungarian cuisine is like. 🙂

We will regularly update you on the progress of the project on our Facebook page.
Read more about the Indeed project here: https://peoplefirst.hu/en/blog-post/ndeed-erasmus-international-project/

We held a very successful final conference on 27. September 2024 about our international project “Walk in our shoes”.
We were delighted that more than 40 participants from many European countries and organizations were interested in the online conference on accessible – as we prefer, inclusive – tourism and the Hidden City Tor-Tour!

At the conference, many affected people with disabilities presented and shared their own stories about tourism and their own travel. For this, we are especially grateful to everyone.

The Summary of the conference is available in English on the interactive Platform of the project, but it will also be published here in English at the bottom of the news in pdf and docx format.

Please join the project’s Platform and let’s work together for barrier-free tourism in the future!
The Platform is available in English here: https://hiddencity.eu/

Summary of the conference:
pdf: Conference summary
docx: Conference summary

An exciting online conference will be held on 27. September from 10.00-12.00. The topic will be about the results so far of our Visegrad Fund supported project to deliver our Hidden City Tor-Tour project as a best practice.

You can find out what is accessible tourism, why is it so important for the near future.
Of course, we will talk about our unique social-sensitizing city walk, which is a novelty in tourism and a business opportunity.
You can hear from disabled travelers about their own experiences.
And you will also hear about how you can get involved in this segment of tourism with us.
Of course you can ask questions, comment, we will answer everything.

Our conference is free, but registration is required. Please register using this simple form: https://forms.gle/HqiaqwkNgEij9rza9

Invite your acquaintances too, because we are presenting a really unique topic and project. We are looking forward to the participation of tourism professionals, local government workers, representatives of disabled people’s organizations and anyone else who is interested in the topic.

Let us show you the Conference Program, we are sure you will like it:

CONFERENCE PROGRAM.docx

Already for the 8th time we are organising the Barrier-free Tourism Day festival with our partners.
The cheerful event aims to promote inclusion, getting to know each other as disabled and able-bodied people, while spending a great day together in beautiful surroundings. Our fellow disabled people can have life-changing experiences that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Read more about the event by clicking here: https://akadalymentesnap.hu/?lang=en

Let’s meet on 7. September in Orfű at “Nagytó” (Pécsi-tó), and have good encounters with each other!

The programme poster can also be read with a description for visually impaired followers here: https://akadalymentesnap.hu/2024/09/01/programme-poster-2024/?lang=en

Our Hidden City Tor Tour project showcasing as a best practice, supported by the International Visegrad Fund, has reached an important stage. Using the professional material of the Hidden City Tor-Tour, invented and developed by the People First Public Benefit Association, we provided online training to our Polish and Czech partners. They then developed their own versions, which we visited in study tours to learn from each other. The first professional presentation took place in Pécs/Hungary, then we visited the Polish version in Poznan, and now we saw the Czech version of the Hidden City in Vrchlabi/Czech Republic, on 19-21 August.

A fantastic experience to watch three different cities, as three completely different approaches to the Hidden City sensitizing downtown walks are implemented. You may already know the Hungarian version, we hope many of you have already participated in one. If you haven’t yet, contact us, we are the best offer for corporate team building, school activities or an unconventional walk in Pécs with your friends! You can contact us here: info@peoplefirst.hu

Poznań is a much bigger city than Pécs, it would be difficult to do a circle walk of the city centre with a Hidden City Tor Tour, you have to choose your route carefully. However, that is why it is worth offering several route options here. There are accessibility challenges in this beautiful and touristically popular city, so it is worth involving the city administration and working together on these in the near future.

Vrchlabi is a small mountain town in a unique geological setting, which is definitely worth incorporating into a Hidden City project. You could even organise a special variation of accessible tours, as the local national park management seems to be interested. The small town offers a new experience with new features, and there is plenty more to bring to the attention of decision-makers and the public.

The next important step in our joint V4 project “Walk in our shoes” will be a final conference in the near future, where we will talk about the importance of accessible tourism, present the results of the project and broaden the partnership, which we welcome all those who wish to join through our interactive Platform. If you would like to participate in the online small conference to close the project and you speak English, you can already let us know, we look forward to welcoming you: info@peoplefirst.hu.

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