We held an employee sensitization on September 22. for the market inspectors and security service of the recently opened Pécs Market Hall.

The purpose of the informative discussion, initiated by the People First Association and held together with several of our partners, was to give employees an insight into how to help and how not to help customers with disabilities, what accessibility means and who cares about accessibility.

We would like to thank the participating employees and the management of the Market Hall for the openness with which they received the information of the following participating organizations: People First Association “sticker” team, Baranya County Association for the Disabled, Baranya County Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and See the World through autistic Eyes Association.

It was a great feeling that a relaxed, friendly, interactive conversation developed, and at the end of the practical demonstration in the hall, we already had a huge laugh together.

The management of the Market Hall and the kind employees were also open to the continuation, where they will be able to get to know some of the disability groups in more depth.

The joint sensitization was one of the very joyful developments in the series of discussions initiated by the TASZ about the accessibility of Pécs.
The People First Association has always been thinking in partnership because that’s the only thing we consider to be expedient and truly effective in our efforts for the city and the community.

As the next step, the People First Association invited its partners to review each location according to their own criteria in our Accessible Pécs database, using the “Write reviews” rubric. After all, as with booking.com, opinions are often the most informative for readers.
We asked our partners to write with the intention of improving and briefly, formulating their own experiences, ideas and suggestions.

Review is open to everyone, we are happy to receive as many comments as possible about the sites in the database!

We held an intensive and active workshop on a niche topic on September 2. in Orfű at the Natúra Pension and Apartment House. We talked about the collaboration of ARTISTS AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES with participants from both sides.

Following the opening ceremony of Zita Füziné Kajdy, mayor of Orfű, we heard informative lectures from university teachers in Pécs, Budapest and Szekszárd about accessibility.

Then the People First Association presented the international ARTcoWORKers project, which aims to stimulate the relationship between the artistic / creative world and people with disabilities.

It was very important for us to hear the ideas and opinions of those working in the creative industry and people with disabilities about the opportunities for cooperation, so we had world-changing discussions at small group roundtables (World Café) and an evening garden party.

Creativity could not be lacking in the workshop, we even played a shadow play with the lights on the phones.

Very good ideas, many new and expectedly fruitful acquaintances were born in Orfű on this day.

Soon, we will continue with the piloting of the ARTcoWORKers training, and an international small group online collaboration. We will crown all this next March in Pécs with an ARTcoWORKers international final conference!

Follow the developments of the ARTcoWORKers project on the project Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Artcoworkers/

We are waiting for everyone for a special workshop on 2. September in Orfű! We have been organizing related programs around the Barrier-free Tourism Day for years, this year we invite you here.

In a wonderful setting, we have a niche conversation about the relationship between art and disability.

We are very curious about your opinions and ideas at the workshop, so we provide an opportunity to do this in the framework of small group World Café discussions and a pleasant garden party.

Please be sure to indicate your participation at the info@peoplefirst.hu email address.

You can read the program here (in Hungarian):

The program poster for the VI. Barrier-free Tourism Day has been completed.

Everyone is welcome on 3. September from 10.00 to 16.00 for a special, inclusive festival, where people with disabilities and able bodied, old and young, so everyone can have fun together. Meanwhile, we offer experiences for people with disabilities that they can’t try anyway.

You can also read the detailed program on the festival’s page (in Hungarian): PROGRAMPOSTER

We can hardly believe it, but surely, for the sixth year in a row, the Barrier-Free Tourism Day will be held on Saturday, 3. September 2022 in the beautiful paradise near Pécs: Orfű. The annual event is organized by the People First Association with its co-partners – the Municipality of Orfű, the Gyeregyalog.hu Association, and Medvehagyma Ház. Its main goal is to achieve social inclusion by having fun together at a special festival for the able bodies and disabled people.

At the current festival special experiences have already been put together, which the majority of people with disabilities can only experience here. There will also be motorcycling, sailing and speedboating, dragon boating, driving a car for the visually impaired, fishing. You can also try a wide variety of sports, while all kinds of great cultural programs ensure an unforgettable atmosphere.

Follow the event’s website: https://akadalymentesnap.hu/ and current news on its Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/turizmus.akadalymentes

Check out our new awareness video on our association’s Youtube channel!
This time we would like to point out that accessibility is good for EVERYONE!
Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvmpVmBMaC4

Thank you for sharing it, using it.

If you would like to support our accessibility work, you can do so here on the home page of our website with the “Adományozok” (Donations) button with any amount of money of your choice. Be our regular supporters. 🙂

We worked a lot, we looked a lot of ways, we achieved a lot, we became very tired. Well, in short this is our year of 2021 🙂
Okay of course we’ll give you details, as a lot has happened to us that we would like to share with you very briefly.  

In 2021, according to the previous principles, our organisation’s main focus was on supporting the independent life of people with disabilities, with the biggest emphasis on physical accessibility and social acceptance.   

We wrote and submitted 13 applications for national and international grants , of which 6 were successful. We feel this is an excellent ratio.
As a new direction we’ve turned to CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and the pro bono support of companies, both of which we feel have made significant progress in Hungary, which could create a real win-win situation.  

We tried to make our activities as professional as possible, therefore we executed serious IT development, mostly on the Barrier-Free Pécs database.
We ourselves are also constantly learning, thus our presidency took part in various trainings, and we held further exercises for our membership. The trainings had the topics of community organisation, strategic planning, accessibility, barrier-free and accessible tourism, informatics, easily understandable communication. Several courses also came with a certificate for our members.  

Furthermore, we continue to think in partnership, as the voices of people with disabilities can go much further and they can achieve much more in self-determination and social acceptance if we work with other organisations. We do this with local NGOs, the government of Pécs, national professional organisations and foreign partners.
Amongst our partners we can account local, national and international professional NGOs, the local government, several faculties of the University of Pécs, the Corvinus University of Budapest, high schools in Pécs, tourism organisations, German, Croatian, Spanish, English, Italian, Macedonian and Dutch international partners.
We are very proud and grateful of each of our partnerships!  

A particular pleasure for us is that in 2021 we were able to give the opportunity of participating in the work of an NGO to many trainees and volunteers. We also gained a lot from them.  

Thanks to our BeFogadó/InnClusive community space, launched in July 2021, we have organised a lot of programs and events, but besides these we’d like to highlight the most significant happenings of 2021:  

–  starting from January we continued the “sticker project”, which  created the nationally unique Barrier-Free Pécs database and is  continously expanded with new information
– our international ARTcoWORKers Erasmus+ project, which connects the themes of art and disability, was launched in January
– in February we registered to the fundraising interface of NIOK Foundation, so our online Adományozok/Donate button has been launched on our website
– in February we took part in the Hungarian Parasport Day with an event on Orfű
– from March we got to know the ideas of other local NGOs at the Neighborhood Academy
– during the summer we put a lot of emphasis on communication and PR, so we shot and published videos on our own Youtube channel, seeking the attention of flashmobs.
– we appeared on the official website of the town hall, on pécs.hu, as a new menu (Barrier-free Pécs), and our barrier-free database was also published in printed form.
– also together with the town hall, we launched the #pecsopentoeveryone (#pecsmindenkineknyitva) campaign, which raised awareness of accessibility
– in August we completed our international project Peer-AcT, which aimed to further develop barrier-free tourism.
– in September we organised the gap-filling, national Barrier-Free Tourism Day festival on Orfű again
– we participated in international and national conferences, most of the times as speakers as well. Our main topic is barrier-free tourism, accessibility, and cooperation. In November we also organised a national conference on the theme of accessibility, with a particular focus on accessibility in historic buildings.
– at the end of the year, we participated in the development of the Urban Civil Concept 

Meanwhile, our membership has been constantly expanding, and we have been trying to stand on our own two feet with some of our business activities.  

Continue to stay with us, let’s meet a lot and get to know better what we do!

The international meeting of our ARTcoWORKers project was a special event this time, as we worked together with the future trainers on the evolving training curriculum.

We came from four countries to Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, to work together very intensively for 5 days. Project managers and future trainers from Germany, North-Macedonia, Hungary and the Netherlands – including experts with disabilities – are developing a curriculum that aims to provide useful information to as many people as possible, and bring the two sectors closer together: people with disabilities and artists.

At the meeting in Skopje we discussed all seven modules: on the need for self-representation, creative education, the development of self-esteem, the independent living movement, the fundamental rights of people with disabilities, multiculturalism, assertive communication, conflict management, social inclusion and accessibility. And one module specifically discusses the techniques of shadow theatre, as we thought this was the art form of expression in which we could involve people with disabilities and artists in the most possible ways. 

The training provided a lot of lessons about each other, about ourselves, and even about two very special, sensitive target groups, whose cooperation will certainly bring specific but very useful results. 

In the meantime we got to know a little bit about the special world of North-Macedonia, the kind of cultural, historical, culinary and all kinds of mixing world that gives this Balkan charm to this country.

Thanks to our host Shadows and Clouds and all the participants for their great activity!
Next time we will meet in the Netherlands this summer, this time with the project managers. 

Read a little more about the ARTcoWORKers project here: https://peoplefirst.hu/en/blog-post/artcoworkers-erasmus-nemzetkozi-projekt/
Or on the project’s English-language website and Facebook page: https://artcoworkers.eu/, https://www.facebook.com/Artcoworkers/

Dutch Ambassador Désirée Bonis invited NGOs from Pécs, including the People First Association, to a working lunch. At the great atmosphere we were able to talk about the situation of people with disabilities, the difficulties of their social engagement, and equal opportunity issues. The independence of NGOs, funding opportunities and human rights issues were also discussed.
The Dutch Ambassador in a very sympathetic way would like to get a picture of Hungary, not to see our country only from Budapest. Therefore, the ambassador visits every major city. Pécs was the second stop on March 22. The ambassador did not come for a short visit, she spends two days in our city, meeting with many stakeholders, and also visiting the beauties of the city.
It was a pleasure to see the interest, the openness to our affairs.
Thank you for being together Emberség Erejével Alapítvány, Élmény Tár, Szabad Pécs, Zöld Fiatalok!

Program information – the dry facts:
Erasmus+
Cooperation to promote innovation and exchange good practices
Strategic partnerships
The main objective of the project: innovation
Contract Number: 2018-1-DE02-KA204-005122
Project title: European Peer Counselor Training in Accessible Tourism
Short name: Peer-AcT
Duration: 01.11.2018 – 31.08.2021  34 months

History of what we started:
Regulations such as the objectives of European lifelong learning programmes, the UN Convention on the protection of the rights of people with disabilities, or the EU Disability Strategy 2020 allow for a more equal participation of persons with special educational needs in adult education activities, in which they themselves may even participate as educators. 

The EU Disability Strategy requires accessibility of tourist offers and destinations and the possibility of accessible travel in general. Unfortunately in most tourist destinations only a few facilities are barrier-free, there is no barrier-free entire service chain, and only a small number of tourism employees have the right awareness and skills for inclusive tourism. In addition, only a few people with disabilities participate in existing training programmes. Progress has been made in some European countries and destinations, but this is not enough to meet the requirements of the UN Convention and European accessible tourism strategies.

The key to implementing the above-mentioned strategies is the much better quality TRAINING of decision-makers and employees. The main principle in social inclusion is that persons with disabilities should participate as experts in their own interests in all relevant topics, activities and processes.

Therefore, the project had two main target groups in training activities:
1. on the one hand, people with disabilities as peer-to-peer advisors,
2. on the other hand, employees of central decision-makers, private and public institutions and companies in the tourism and leisure industries.

Six partners from Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Croatia have developed and implemented an innovative methodology for training of people with disabilities as adult educators on accessible tourism.

The main activities were: 

1. Developing a methodology for peer counseling in accessible tourism. In English, the shorter version is available in all partner countries.
2. Development of a counseling and training methodology and a curriculum for the training of peer counselors. Available in English and 5 partner countries. We held a total of 11 courses during the project with 59 participants.
3. Establishment of 5 regional training centres, developing a methodology in English and in the languages of the 5 partner countries. 6 training sessions were held by Peer-AcT trainers for tourism experts.
4. Develop a training course for professionals interested in accessible tourism. Available in English and 5 partner countries. We have 5 pilot courses. 
5. Develop an E-learning course with tutorials and 10 self-produced videos. Available in English and 5 partner countries via Moodle app.  Through the Laya Platform it is available in subtitles, sign language and easy-to-understand language. This is supported by a manual in English and German.
6. Development of a marketing and project implementation summary manual. Available in English and 5 partner countries. 

What have we achieved?
– We have trained a total of 63 people with disabilities in the five partner countries to become Peer-AcT consultants.
– 46 Peer-AcT trainers and tourism experts have received training in accessible tourism in the Training centres
– 41 representatives in the tourism sector participated in inclusive and accessible tourism Peer-AcT courses.
– We held 7 multiplier events for people with disabilities with 68 participants, 5 multiplier events for tourism experts with 85 participants,
– We held 6 international meetings and study tours
– we held an intermediate conference in Hungary/Orfű and a final conference in Bossolasco, Italy
– We sent out 6 newsletters and created a project brochure in English and 5 partner countries

The innovation offered by the project (because that’s always the point):
– On the one hand, the involvement of people with disabilities as experts at all levels of the project with the aim of training them as accessible tourism trainers. In doing so, we are making a claim that they should be involved in the UN convention’s affairs concerning them on their own behalf.
– The second innovation is the formation of a mixed group of disabled experts and tourism experts, who together cover the necessary knowledge to be used in the training and development of accessible tourism.
– We provide a free methodology for peer-to-peer counselling and mentoring in accessible tourism, and we provide 3 inclusive training courses with manuals, E-learning opportunities for people with disabilities and for able bodied people.

The results of the project have been continuously widely published: for NGOs, regional and national authorities, European agencies and networks, through our website, social media, newsletters and the press.
The project partners held public workshops for stakeholders at their locations and organized two conferences to inform them about the results and activities of the project. 

The most important long-term effects of the project are:
– strengthening the equal participation of people with disabilities as peer experts and adult educators
– raising awareness, skills and knowledge of decision-makers, tourism and leisure workers, and strengthening their new way of thinking
– facilitating the european cooperation and exchange of experience between peer experts
Indirect:
– increasing accessibility to tourist destinations
– start creating so-called barrier-free service chains

Partners in the project:
Verein zur sozialen und beruflichen Integration e.V. – Germany
KOPF, HAND und FUSS gemeinnützige Gesellschaft für Bildung mbH – Germany
Consorzio Turistico Langhe Monferrato Roero – Italy
Unione Montana Alta Langa – Italy
Udruga za kreativni razvoj Slap – Croatia
Asociación para el Estudio y Promoción del Bienestar Social – Spain
Zöld-Aktív Szociális Szövetkezet – Hungary
Pécsi Tudományegyetem – Hungary
People First Egyesület Pécs – Hungary

Sustainability of the project:
63 trained Peer-AcT trainers will continue to use their competencies as adult trainers on a main or part-time role, enabling them to develop their own personalities as persons with disabilities. They can also find new occupations, such as employment in Erfurt in the advice project on inclusive housing, in Pécs in the Hidden City accessible city tour as a tour guide, or in the InnClusive Community Space as a barrier-free tourism peer-advisor, or in Bossolasco employment in the city tourist office.
Through guidelines and marketing plans published in the Peer-AcT handbook, Peer-AcT partners and followers can set up local training centers, hold personal and E-learning courses for people with disabilities and tourism professionals on accessible tourism.

You can find us, the People First Association, in our InnClusive Community Space, where our trained Peer-AcT consultants regularly provide advice on accessible tourism every month.
You can read more about the InnClusive Community Space here: https://peoplefirst.hu/en/befogado/
You can reach us here: pfpecs@gmail.com

You can find everything on the Peer-AcT project website: http://peeract.eu/