1st Transnational meeting (1. TM)

24.03.2022 -25.03.2022

Hungary

 

 

According to the attached programme, TM 1 was implemented in Hungary.

 

On the first day, we visited Szentendre to see the implementation site and the professional programme of the project "Supporting disadvantaged social groups with adult education tools in museums".

 

In the case of target groups with fewer opportunities and barriers, the experts spoke in detail about programmes for the homeless and people with dementia. The so-called museum in a suitcase was then presented.

 

The Reintegration Program for Homeless People aims to provide cultural equality, to develop their self-esteem and self-respect, to teach them practical skills, to help social acceptance.

 

The activities included an interactive guided tour, which was based on conversation, reaching out to each other and openness. The workshops developed practical skills (e.g. making fire), cooperation and other social skills.

 

In addition to learning the recipes, the joint preparation of meals developed cooperation, not to mention the sharing of meals and the consumption of the prepared food.

 

The Dementia Programme aims to improve the health and well-being of people living with dementia. The Museum's collection provides an opportunity for elderly participants to take part in a "time-travelling back" to their childhood and youth.

 

Open air museums have a unique opportunity: they provide a whole setting of an outdoor area and a house fully equipped with furniture and objects.

 

Several "family atmosphere" activities took place, such as baking, gingerbread making, tea drinking, flower planting and gardening, etc. In the meantime, music was playing and people had the opportunity to sing. The museum offers the opportunity to see and touch "typical Hungarian animals", which can be very therapeutic for this project.

 

The key to the project is communication: active listening and turning towards the participants, the "there is time for everything" attitude, patience, respect for human dignity, waiting, listening. All of these are in themselves an experience and developmental for all ages and target groups.

 

In the course of the Museum in a Suitcase project, the museum has been and will continue to be implemented in under privileged subregions, small villages where the memory of folk culture is still alive and can be recorded, but where it is equally important to promote and raise awareness of it. In both individual and group sessions, participants - children and their relatives, whole families, and often other adults - are encouraged to learn about their own family history and customs, helping to strengthen their identity. Often, the suitcase museum reaches "out-of-the-way-places", or where the people living there have almost no opportunity to get out and/or visit a museum, or to participate in any kind of development or awareness-raising.

 

The large, emblematic suitcase contains objects from many popular cultures. Even by itself it could be very useful, but it's the accompanying activities and discussions that make it really effective.

 

Processed topics:

- holidays and traditions

- our food, our life

- family and community.

 

Individual developments, group work, playful processing take place during the program.

 

A For you? For me is a programme, TOLERANCE PROGRAMS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AND TEENAGERS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS. During the one-week programme, a young person with special needs and a secondary school young person pair up, work together, participate in programmes together. This gives them the opportunity to learn from each other, to get to know each other's needs and wants better, to help each other, to support each other, to take responsibility for each other. Secondary school students learn the basics of peer helping skills, with specific, first-hand experience and practice.

 

After the presentation of the programmes, we visited the North-Hungarian Village Subregion.

 

The aim of the Szentendre Open-Air Ethnographic Museum is to present the folk architecture, housing culture, farming and lifestyle of the Hungarian-speaking region, with original, relocated buildings and authentic objects, in the context of old settlement forms, from the mid-18th to the first half of the 20th century.

 

Within the North Hungarian Village landscape, the buildings are part of the traditional order of a peasant village, with sacral, communal and economic structures that were once part of the traditional village landscape. The dwellings and farm buildings are representative of the historically evolved dwelling type and its characteristic outbuildings in the landscape.

 

As the Turkish partner is culturally distant from Hungarian traditions, the Szentendre Open Air Museum proved to be a good and efficient choice for a quick and historical experience. At the end of the visit, we visited the emblematic animals of traditional Hungarian animal livestock breeding (sheep, pigs, puli, ducks, geese, grey cattle, donkey, etc.).

 

The visit expanded both the theoretical and experiential segments, with synergistic components of cultural, facilitative/supportive, project-oriented, developmental, etc.

 

During the afternoon, the focus was on processing the experiences, and after a working lunch, we clarified the further tasks of the project (operational work).

 

The next day we started at the Belvárosi Tanoda Foundation Secondary School.  The core mission of the organisation is to provide complex care for young people who have dropped out of education and support services; its main objective is to provide one-to-one education/training/mental health care for young people who have dropped out of secondary education and are excluded and have no qualifications. This includes the provision of 135 students with the opportunity to pass the school-leaving examination as a chance to continue their education, and at the same time to enable them to continue learning, working and leading a healthy life, which in our view is the harmony of physical, mental and spiritual health. It carries out the following activities: preparation for graduation based on individual scheduling and developmental assessment, learning process adapted to individual needs, acquired knowledge and skills, strengths-based individual development, mental health and psychosocial care, life skills counselling, individual mentoring, case management, group activities, leisure activities, skills development, community activities, career guidance courses.

 

The target groups of their project VEKOP-7.3.6-17-2018-00013 LÉPCSŐK. Initiative for supporting further education:

 

- pupils from the age of 15 who are disadvantaged and/or in receipt of regular child protection benefits (establishing a student relationship with the Belvárosi Tanoda Foundation Secondary School),

- and teachers, mentors and professionals working with the target group under the programme,

- parents and family members of the pupils involved,

- the other pupils of the institution as a whole, in order to integrate the group of pupils described above.

 

One of the expectations of the project was regular contact with the family, close cooperation with parents to strengthen motivation and to develop a positive vision of the future.

 

The visit was particularly interesting because, in addition to the social worker, 3 students presented the organisation, the institution, everyday life, their own situation and their relationship with their families in a very diverse and plastic way.

 

After lunch, we visited the site of the Half-way Housing Complex Reintegration Programme of Váltó-sáv Alapítvány and had an insight into the professional programme. The programme is open to people who have been released from prison:

- their family/human relationships have faded during their incarceration, or none at all;

- are unable or unwilling to return to their original living environment;

- are motivated to change, want to change their pre-custodial criminal behaviour;

- commit to working with the Váltó-sáv Alapítvány or its helping professionals;

- accept that they are participating in a programme that is half-way (that's the name of the programme) between a totally locked institution and complete freedom; because they recognise that they need help.

 

Provided services in the half-way accommodation:

- individual case management (using several methods: counselling, consultation, coaching);

- job placement and keeping (career guidance and job coaching);

- change management support;

- digital competence development (once a week for 2-3 hours in a group/development session, but on-going in practice)

- Opportunities to develop self-awareness and communication skills (group/development sessions 2 times per week, 2 hours per session)

- facilitating and supporting access to other training, development and programmes;

- other art therapy programme elements (biblio- and manual development, i.e. craft programmes - creating/implementing opportunities for personal development and reparation);

- running a residential group (to reduce difficulties of coexistence, develop and continuously improve self-reflection, which also significantly reduces the risk of re-offending);

- providing structured leisure activities and opportunities (joint holiday celebrations, traditions, other spontaneous and organised activities);

- ensuring cleanliness of the living environment, possibility of improvements;

- Facilitation of additional supportive human relations, integration into communities and groups;

- if possible, to arrange family relationships;

- Facilitating and enabling reparation programmes;

- support participation in other voluntary, community events;

- mandatory early retirement;

- in-house training of an experienced staff member (half-time resident);

- Establishment and development of an internal mentoring programme

 

We concluded the meeting by discussing dissemination issues and clarifying the implementation of further programme elements.